-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 18, 2007 5:55:06 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Race to war with Iran accelerating, out of control, says UN
Drift into war with Iran out of control, says UN
· Officials back nuclear inspector's warning
· Tehran denounces French extremism in growing row
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
The Guardian (UK), September 18, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2171631,00.html
Mohamed ElBaradei: 'I would not talk about any use of force.'
Photograph: Samuel Kubani/AFP/Getty Images
The UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector yesterday warned against
the use of force against Iran, in what UN officials said was an
attempt to halt an "out of control" drift to war.
His outspoken remarks, which drew a parallel between Iran and Iraq,
appeared to take aim at the US and Britain. They followed comments
on Sunday night by the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner,
who said: "We have to prepare for the worst," adding "the worst is
war".
"I would not talk about any use of force," Mohamed ElBaradei told
reporters at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in
Vienna. "There are rules on how to use force, and I would hope that
everybody would have gotten the lesson after the Iraq situation,
where 700,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives on the
suspicion that a country has nuclear weapons."
There has been a string of reports out of Washington that the Bush
administration is running out of patience with diplomacy and is
intensifying its plans for air strikes as a means of halting Iran's
disputed nuclear programme.
UN officials said Mr ElBaradei, an Egyptian diplomat who was
awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2005, was attempting to slow down
what seemed to be an accelerating march to war.
"There's a strategic reason for doing these things," one official
said. "He really is alarmed. He sees this thing going out of
control. The feeling around here is that this looks like the run-up
to the Iraq war."
Last month, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, sparked a heated
political debate in Paris when he called the Iranian stand-off "the
greatest crisis" of current times, saying the world had "a
catastrophic alternative: an Iranian bomb or the bombing of Iran".
Following Mr Kouchner's comments, Tehran yesterday denounced
France's stance on the nuclear issue, which has toughened since Mr
Sarkozy's election in May. Iran's state-owned news agency IRNA
published an editorial accusing Paris of "extremism" and pandering
to Washington.
"The new occupants of the Elysée want to copy the White House," it
said, accusing Mr Sarkozy of taking on "an American skin".
Iran insists on its right to run a comprehensive nuclear programme,
including the enrichment of uranium, which it says is intended for
peaceful electricity generation.
The US has called a meeting of senior European and Russian
officials in Washington on Friday to discuss the deepening crisis
over Iran. Britain, the US and France are likely to push for more
sanctions over Iranian defiance, while Russia and China are
expected to resist, pointing to a deal Mr ElBaradei struck with the
Iranian government last month, in which Tehran agreed to answer
unresolved questions over its nuclear programme.
The US, Britain, France and Germany complained to Mr ElBaradei that
they had not been consulted and that the agreement did not mention
the UN Security Council's demand that Iran suspend uranium
enrichment while its programme is assessed. In their eyes, the deal
gave Tehran a means of stalling new sanctions while continuing to
produce nuclear fuel.
France is determined that if the UN is unable to agree on a new
round of sanctions against Iran, the European Union should impose
its own. Mr Kouchner said leading French companies such as Total
and Renault had been urged not to sign new contracts with Iran, and
he flew to Moscow to try to persuade Russia to accept a toughening
of the embargo.
Meanwhile, the French prime minister, François Fillon, yesterday
tried to play down the talk of war, saying that everything must be
done to avoid a conflict, but he added that Mr Kouchner was right
to stress the danger and seriousness of the Iranian stand-off.
A British official said yesterday that when the French foreign
minister had raised the spectre of a conflict, he was "stating the
obvious".
"The worst case scenario is a war with Iran, but meanwhile we are
seeking a diplomatic solution," the official said.
The French Socialist leader François Hollande yesterday called for
an immediate parliamentary debate on Iran, demanding to know if the
government had new intelligence on Iran's nuclear intentions.
After talks with Mr Kouchner in Paris yesterday, the Dutch foreign
minister Maxime Verhagen said the Netherlands would support EU
sanctions if the UN Security Council failed to agree new measures.
Mr ElBaradei, the director general of the IAEA, has been
increasingly at odds with Washington and London, who believe he is
straying beyond his job description and freelancing as an
independent statesman.
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