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WORLD / Middle East

France says must prepare for possible war with Iran

(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-09-17 11:00

PARIS- French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday his
country must prepare for the possibility of war against Iran over its
nuclear programme, but he did not believe any such action was imminent.

Seeking to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, Kouchner also told RTL radio
and LCI television that the world's major powers should use further
sanctions to show they were serious about stopping Tehran getting atom
bombs, and said France had asked French firms not to bid for tenders in
the Islamic Republic.

"We must prepare for the worst," Kouchner said in an interview, adding:
"The worst, sir, is war."

Asked about the preparations, he said it was normal to prepare for
various eventualities.

"We are preparing ourselves by trying to put together plans that are the
chiefs of staff's prerogative (but) that is not about to happen
tomorrow," he added.

Tehran insists it only wants to master nuclear technology to produce
electricity, but it has yet to comply with repeated UN demands that it
suspend uranium enrichment and other sensitive work that could
potentially be used in producing weapons.

Kouchner's comments follow a similarly hawkish statement by French
President Nicolas Sarkozy, who said last month in his first major foreign
policy speech since taking office that a diplomatic push by the world's
powers was the only alternative to "an Iranian bomb or the bombing of
Iran".

Asked if France was involved in any planning towards war, he said: "The
French army is not at the moment associated with anything at all, nor
with any manoeuvre at all."

"Peace?is in your interest"

France has said repeatedly it wants the UN Security Council to pass
tougher sanctions against Iran over its failure to dispel fears that it
is secretly pursuing nuclear weapons.

"We do not want to signal anything other than 'peace is in your interest,
and in ours too,'" Kouchner said, adding that the door should be left
open to negotiations with Tehran, but Paris has made a suspension of
nuclear work a condition for talks.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran would not give up its
nuclear programme.

"Of course we will not abandon our right to nuclear technology," he told
state television. "They (the West) talks about imposing sanctions on
Iran, but they can not do it."

Washington says the time has to expand the penalties and has called a
September 21 meeting of the six powers to discuss a third sanctions
resolution to submit to the UN Security Council.

Kouchner said France had asked its biggest companies, including oil giant
Total and gas firm Gaz de France, not to bid for projects in Iran.

"We have already asked a certain number of our large companies to not
respond to tenders, and it is a way of signalling that we are serious,"
Kouchner said.

"We are not banning French companies from submitting. We have advised
them not to. These are private companies. But I think that it has been
heard and we are not the only ones to have done this."

In addition, Paris and Berlin were preparing possible European Union
economic sanctions against Tehran, Kouchner said.

"We have decided to ... prepare ourselves for possible sanctions outside
the UN sanctions and which would be European sanctions. Our German
friends proposed it. We discussed it a few days ago," Kouchner said.

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