January 23, 2006	Monday	Zilhaj 22, 1426

TEHRAN, Jan 22: French President Jacques Chirac came under attack in Iran on Sunday after warning that France could use nuclear arms against state sponsors of terrorism, with officials in the Islamic republic branding the remark “shameful” and “unacceptable”.

“It is shameful for the people of France that their president brandishes atomic weapons on the pretext of fighting terrorism,” said Gholam Ali Hadad-Adel, Speaker of Iran’s parliament said.

On Thursday, Chirac for the first time raised the threat of a nuclear strike on any state that launches “terrorist” attacks against France.

Although he did not single out any country, the warning could be interpreted as including Iran.

But Hadad-Adel said the French president was merely “trying to restore the prestige of France after the recent unrest, when young people took to the streets and torched hundreds of cars every night.”

“The French need to make an effort to remove the shame of the massacre of millions of Algerians, France’s support for Saddam Hussein and the massacres in Africa and Rwanda,” Hadad-Adel said in a speech to deputies carried by state radio.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, in a statement carried by the official news agency IRNA, also branded Chirac’s comments as “unacceptable and unjustifiable”.

“These statements redouble public concern in countries of the world which face those countries in possession of nuclear weapons,” Asefi was quoted as saying.

Iran is currently at loggerheads with France, with Paris at the forefront of Western efforts to prevent the Islamic republic from acquiring nuclear technology that could be diverted to making weapons of mass destruction.

France, along with Britain and Germany and backed by the United States, is now leading a push for Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council.

Iran has denounced the mounting pressure, saying it only wants to generate electricity and that this is a right for any signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran is a signatory to the NPT.

An editorial by the Jomhuri Islami newspaper argued that Chirac’s warning was a sign of the double standards Iran has long complained about.

It said Chirac had defied the NPT and calls for nuclear disarmament, and said France “has no right to be a member of world’s nuclear club or comment on other countries”.

“His remarks mean the French government would use the atomic bomb to oppress the ones who seek liberty,” the paper said in a comment that could be seen as alluding to Iran’s support for Palestinian militants.

“Everybody knows they label anyone who opposes their exploitative and colonial demands as terrorists, and that any country sheltering such people and supports them is named a supporter of terrorists,” the paper wrote.

“(Chirac) has unveiled the true face of the West,” it said, asking why Iran should “still wait for negotiations” over its own nuclear programme.

GERMANY: German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung criticized French President Jacques Chirac’s threat of a nuclear response to a terror attack and called for a diplomatic approach to the nuclear crisis with Iran, in an interview published on Sunday.

Jung told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that he found Chirac’s comments counterproductive in the context of the West’s row with Tehran over its nuclear programme.

“We should not lead the discussion in that direction,” he said.

“We need all options at our disposal. But before that, everything must be attempted on the diplomatic front to achieve a positive outcome. I am confident that we can find a diplomatic solution in the case of Iran.”

A German government spokesman gave a cautious response on Friday to Chirac’s remarks, which modified France’s long-standing nuclear doctrine to specifically warn that its atomic arsenal could be used against states that sponsor terror attacks on France.

Spokesman Thomas Steg told reporters that Germany believed the French leader’s comments were in line with Paris’s existing nuclear policy and did not see in Chirac’s warning “any reason to believe that France’s policy has changed or will change in the future”.

The United States and European countries led by Britain, France and Germany are urging Iran to halt its nuclear activities, suspecting that Tehran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons.—AFP