AFP: Iran has summoned the French envoy to Tehran to protest at comments by President Nicolas Sarkozy about refusing to meet his counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state television reported on Thursday.
TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran has summoned the French envoy to Tehran to protest at comments by President Nicolas Sarkozy about refusing to meet his counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state television reported on Thursday.
The foreign ministry summoned Bernard Poletti on Wednesday to express "its strong objections to the recent interfering comments by the French president," according to a ministry statement read on state television.
The ministry also "warned about the repercussion on bilateral relations of any repetition of such ill-considered remarks."
Sarkozy said it was "impossible for me to shake hands with someone who has dared to say that Israel should be wiped off the map," and that he would not "sit at the same table (as Ahmadinejad)."
His comments were made on Monday on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, according to the French presidency website.
Iran does not recognise Israel and Ahmadinejad has caused outrage by saying the Jewish state was a "cancerous tumour" and should be wiped off the map.
