Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney expressed solidarity on Thursday with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, after he called for a “red line” on Iran to stop it from reaching nuclear weapons capability.

“I stand with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” Romney said in a statement quoted by AFP, after the Israeli Prime Minister told the UN General Assembly that the world needed to stop Tehran from enriching enough uranium for a nuclear bomb.

“I join in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s call for a Middle East of progress and peace,” said Romney, who has strongly criticized President Barack Obama for what the Republican challenger describes as failing to curtail Iran’s ambition to build a nuclear weapon.

“I join his urgent call to prevent the gravest threat to that vision: a nuclear-armed Iran,” Romney said of Netanyahu. “The designs of the Iranian regime are a threat to America, Israel and our friends and allies around the world.”

Romney’s statement did not mention the “red line” that Netanyahu called for from the world community, but on Wednesday Romney said Iran’s regime “can never be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons capability.”

In his speech Thursday, Netanyahu drew an actual red line with a marker on a chart symbolizing Iran’s uranium enrichment program, and explained that Iran must be told that if it reaches enough uranium enriched to the 90% level in order to make a nuclear bomb, it will be attacked.

Obama has rejected the idea of such an international red line and officials in Washington made ​​it clear on Thursday that the United States still opposes placing such a red line for Iran.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, criticizing “threats by the uncivilized Zionists” to attack Iran.

Romney on Wednesday slammed the remarks as part of “a long list of belligerent and disgusting statements” by Ahmadinejad.