Sarkozy: Iran Ambitions May Provoke Attack, Assad Actions Irreparable
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy warned on Wednesday that Iran's alleged attempts to build long-range missiles and nuclear weapons could lead unnamed countries to launch a pre-emptive attack.
"Its military nuclear and ballistic ambitions constitute a growing threat that may lead to a preventive attack against Iranian sites that would provoke a major crisis that France wants to avoid at all costs," he said.
Sarkozy did not say which country might launch such a strike, but it has been reported that Israel -- perhaps with U.S. support -- has considered bombing Iranian nuclear sites if it believes Tehran is close to building a weapon.
The French leader placed the blame for the crisis on Iran, which insists it has no intention of building a nuclear weapon, and is merely enriching nuclear fuel for medical research and a domestic atomic energy program.
"Iran refuses to negotiate seriously," he told an annual meeting of French diplomats. "Iran is carrying out new provocations in response to the challenge from the international community for it to provide a credible response."
Sarkozy said France would work with its allies to build support for tougher international sanctions against Tehran's Islamist regime, in a bid to force it to back down over its enrichment program.
Tehran currently does its uranium enrichment, the most sensitive part of its program, at the Natanz facility in central Iran, with plans to divert the 20-percent purification process to a new site near the holy city of Qom.
The U.N. Security Council has repeatedly ordered Tehran to halt all uranium enrichment until its agency the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is satisfied by the peaceful nature of its nuclear activities.
But, despite being targeted by four sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions over its refusal to suspend enrichment, Iran remains adamant that it will push ahead and denies Western claims that it seeks to build a nuclear bomb.
This week Iran upped the ante once again, announcing that it had abandoned talks with the international community to negotiate a nuclear fuel swap that would see it forego its own enrichment in return for civilian-level fuel.
Western powers fear that if Iran perfects enrichment technology it could rapidly convert uranium into weapons grade material and thus be considered a "threshold" nuclear power capable of rapidly constructing a bomb.
Tackling the Syrian crisis, Sarkozy said that the actions of President Bashar Al-Assad had caused "irreparable" damage to his legitimacy and vowed to support his overthrow.
Sarkozy said France will do whatever is "legally" within its power in order to ensure a victory of Syria's pro-democracy movement over Assad's regime.
"The regime in Damascus wrongly believes it is safe from its own people," Sarkozy said, referring to Assad's ongoing battle to suppress pro-democracy street protests that have erupted in Syrian cities.
"What the Syrian president has done is irreparable. France, with its partners, will do all that is legally possible in order that the Syrian people's hopes for freedom and democracy are triumphant."
On the Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition, Sarkozy said that the European Union should decide en bloc whether and when to recognize the Palestinian Authority's bid for United Nations recognition as a state.
"I hope that the 27 countries of the European Union speak with a single voice. We should live up to our responsibilities together," Sarkozy said.
The Palestinians leadership plans to formally submit a request for United Nations membership on September 20 when world leaders begin gathering in New York for the 66th session of the U.N. General Assembly.
This comes after direct peace talks with Israel ran aground late last year in a dispute over Jewish settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land.
The situation on the ground has since worsened, with renewed settlement building in East Jerusalem and periodic rocket attacks on Israeli targets by Palestinian militants based in the Gaza Strip.
Israel implacably opposes such a statehood move, saying negotiations are the only way to resolve the conflict and establish a Palestinian state, a position backed strongly by would-be Middle East peace broker the United States.
France and some other European states have been more sympathetic to the Palestinians' frustration, but Paris wants to head off a diplomatic showdown that could finish off the already paralyzed peace process.
Source: Agence France Presse
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