The French government was correct in its assessment that “there are all the elements of a very serious obligation on the international community and that we must do everything possible to ensure that Iran does not become nuclear armed,” government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said in Berlin.
Wilhelm was responding to journalists’ questions regarding a statement from French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggesting that there could be war over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Interviewed on French television about Iran late Sunday, Kouchner said, “We must prepare for the worst.” Asked what the worst was, he replied, “It is war.”
Kouchner said there was “no greater crisis today” than that over Teheran’s developing nuclear programme.
“We will not accept that this (nuclear) bomb will be built,” he declared, for this would represent “a real danger for the entire world.
German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said he did not regard Kouchner’s statements as a “threat of war.”
Germany and France were currently cooperating on a third resolution to be placed before the UN Security Council on applying additional sanctions to Iran to compel it to halt its nuclear weapons programme, he said.
Iran has steadfastly declared that its nuclear programme is intended exclusively for the production of energy, and not arms.
Kouchner called on the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Tehran outside of those imposed by the United Nations.
Kouchner’s warning on Iran followed the line taken by President Nicolas Sarkozy in an August 27 speech in which he warned that the Iranian nuclear crisis presented the world with “a catastrophic alternative: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran.”
In March this year, the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1747 increasing sanctions imposed by Resolution 1737, passed in December last year.
