Tensions Over Iran
February 1, 2007
French President Jacques Chirac said on Thursday that a nuclear-armed Iran was unacceptable, setting the record straight after stating that Tehran's possession of the bomb would not be "very dangerous."
Chirac caused a stir after he downplayed the threat posed by Iran in an interview to three publications earlier this week.
"Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well that's not very dangerous," Chirac said. "Where would Iran drop this bomb? On Israel?" he asked. "It would not have gone off 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground," he said.
The Elysee Palace issued a statement on Thursday clarifying Chirac's stance and a presidential aide complained of a "shameful polemic" stoked by "certain media across the Atlantic" who are anti-French.
A clear position
The White House said it was satisfied with Chirac's "revised and extended" comments.
"The fact is our position on Iran is clear, they shouldn't have any nuclear weapon and furthermore they ought to take steps to suspend uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities," said spokesman Tony Snow.
"That is not only the stated position of the United States but also its allies, including France, in terms of dealing with the Iranians," Snow told reporters.
Chirac explosive interview came, nonetheless, at a rather sensitive moment for US-EU relations.
Tensions rising?
Although European countries agreed with the United States to impose sanctions on Iran in line with a UN resolution adopted in December, they have resisted US calls to go even further and force global financial institutions to sever all ties with the Islamic Republic.
US undersecretary in charge of fighting terrorist funding, Stuart Levey, has made several whirlwind trips to Europe over the past months to try to persuade European multinationals and banks to stop investing in Iran.
But so far he has run into a brick wall, with European countries maintaining they are not ready to cut off banking links with Iranian companies, arguing that such a move goes beyond the spirit of the UN resolution.
"We are going to do the utmost to apply the content of the resolution. We are not going to go beyond what is in the resolution as states," a senior European official told AFP.
Partial withdrawal
On Wednesday, Commerzbank, the second-biggest bank in Germany, joined other European banks in curtailing its activities with Iran by abolishing dollar transactions for Iran at its New York branch.
A number of European banks -- such as Credit Suisse and UBS have already taken similar decisions, paring back or ceasing altogether their operations with Iran.
Commerzbank, however, said it would continue to handle euro transactions for its Iranian clients.
Additionally, several European countries continue to offer mostly state-sponsored loans to the Islamic Republic. In 2005 alone, Italy awarded 4.8 billion euros ($6.2 billion) in loans to Teheran, with Germany tallying slightly behind with 4.2 billion euros.
Frustration in the US
US officials this week gave vent to their mounting frustration, which comes as US President George W. Bush has accused Iranian leaders of helping to forment the mounting sectarian violence in Iraq, fuelling fears that the US could be preparing some kind of military response against Tehran.
"The European response on the economic side has been pretty weak," one unnamed senior US official was quoted in The New York Times.
"We are telling the Europeans that they need to go way beyond what they've done to maximize pressure on Iran," he added.
Legal concerns
This position, however, does not seem to completely reflect the view of the US administration.
"I think that the concerns that European governments are expressing have to do with their legal requirements. They have a set of legal requirements that they have to abide by," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"And I'm not sure I would call that resistance to discussing or cooperating on these various measures."
European Union foreign ministers last week agreed to implement the full raft of UN sanctions against Tehran and deplored "Iran's failure to take the steps repeatedly required by the IAEA board of governors and the United Nations Security Council."
A new EU meeting is planned in mid-February to put in place European regulations on the Iran sanctions which suspend all exports of materiel and technology to the Islamic Republic.
The UN resolution also freezes Iranian assets abroad and restricts foreign travel by Iranians deemed to be involved in the suspect programs.