Chirac riskeert ruzie met VS en Duitsland om Iran (en)

French president Jacques Chirac has spoken out against imposing UN sanctions on Iran for its reluctance to suspend uranium enrichment and in favour of starting talks with the country before any pre-conditions are met.

"I don't believe in a solution without dialogue," Mr Chirac said in a rare interview with the French Europe-1 radio on Monday (18 September).

He stated that he had "never seen that sanctions were very effective," adding that he was "not pessimistic" over the prospect of a compromise deal with the "great nation" of Iran.

"We must first find an agenda for negotiations, then during these negotiations I suggest that, on the one hand, the six [the US, the UK, France, Germany, China and Russia] renounce involving the security council and Iran renounces uranium-enrichment during the negotiations," the French president said.

Mr Chirac is the first world leader to propose starting negotiations with Tehran before it suspends its nuclear programme, a move which goes directly against Washington which is backing UN sanctions.

Paris and Berlin at odds

The French leader's stance also risks putting EU unity over Iran to the test.

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said action by the UN security council could not wait for "weeks" in remarks explained by German media as Berlin distancing itself from Paris over the affair.

Earlier this year, a UN security council resolution called on Iran to freeze nuclear enrichment by the end of August but the Islamic country refused to do so - saying it would not accept any pre-conditions for starting the talks with the international community.

Tehran insists it has a right to produce nuclear energy and it wants to use it for peaceful purposes - but the international community is concerned it is using it to develop nuclear weapons.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana recently praised the progress achieved after his last discussions with Iran's chief negotiator Ali Larijani about conditions for triggering the formal talks.

It was reported that Iran might consider a "voluntary" suspension of enrichment for up to two months.

But Washington has been urging other world leaders to back immediate action as Tehran had ignored the UN deadline, with US president George W. Bush expected to reiterate such calls today in his speech to the 192-nation assembly, meeting this week in New York.

Defending France's Iraq policy

Mr Chirac's interview was also seen as a reaction to last week's comments in Washington by Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister in the centre-right government, on French "arrogance" in the run up to the Iraq war in 2003.

The outspoken minister and the centre-right presidential hopeful for the 2007 elections suggested that Paris had gone too far in threatening to use its UN security council veto to block the US-led operation.

"When I look at the situation, I do not feel I have committed an error," Mr Chirac told Europe 1 radio, adding "We have relations [with the US] that can only be between equals, which cannot be a relationship of submission."

The 73-year old president criticised Mr Sarkozy and his ideas on US-French relations in private, report French media, saying that the interior minister's US speech was "irresponsible" and "lamentable."