SHARON ANTI IRAN TALKS REBUKED BY IRAN AND EUROPE

PARIS 6 Nov. (IPS)

Israel’s Prime Minister strong words on Iran drew sharp rebuke not only from Iran, but also several European politicians, including French and British.

In an exclusive interview with the “The Times” of London published Tuesday, Mr. Sharon, the lamed but hard line Israeli Premier had called on the international community, but mostly the United States and England to “attack Iran” once they finish off with Iraq, presenting Tehran as the “centre of world terrorism”.

“Ariel Sharon's statement aimed to encourage the United States to initiate military attack on Iran after Iraq is the ominous dream of the Israeli war criminal”, commented Mr. Hamid Reza Asefi, Iran’s Foreign Affairs Ministry’s senior spokesman.

Sharon's statement (in The Times interview) indicated that the Zionist regime is exploiting the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States to flame militarism in the international community, he added, quoted by the official news agency IRNA.

"While regional countries call for settlement of crisis through peaceful means, the Zionist regime calls for escalation of war and violence. That's why the Islamic Republic of Iran regards Israel as the source of tension and conflict in the Middle East," Asefi said.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister spokesman Francois Rivasseau has echoed Britain's rejection of hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's call on the US to attack Iran after Iraq.

"France, like British Foreign Secretary (Jack Straw) who has described this a grave error, rejects such a stance", he told Iranian officicial news agency IRNA on Wednesday when asked to comment on Sharon's statements.

Mr. Straw was the first to react to Mr. Sharon’s declaration, saying an attack on Iran would be “the gravest possible error to think in that way".

"Jack Straw's statements reflect both the stance of the UK and the European Union on this issue and France, beside rejecting Sharon's remarks, does not believe in a military confrontation in the region as well as descriptions of the “axis of evil' type", Rivasseau said.

US President George W. Bush has lumped Iran into an 'axis of evil' with Iraq and North Korea for allegedly trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction which Tehran rejects. Paris is among key opponents of a military action against Iraq which Washington accuses of hiding its stocks of chemical and biological weapons and nuclear arms program.

"Number one I understand while people in Israel are frightened but number two I profoundly disagree with him and I think it would be the gravest possible error to think in that way", Mr. Straw told BBC radio on Mr. Sharon’s statement about Iran.

"I know that Iran has a very hostile attitude to the existence of the State of Israel but I also know that Iran... is a nation in a state of transition", said Straw, who has visited Iran three times in just over a year, the latest trip made in October to drum up support for a hardline stance against Iraq.

"I think that the way to ensure proper progress with Iran is not by that kind of hostile threat but by the process and strategy of constructed and critical engagement that we are involved in", he added.

While Sharon told The Times that he regarded Iraq as "a very, very dangerous country led by an insane regime", he considered Iran to be a "centre of world terror", and that as soon as an Iraq conflict was concluded, he would push for Iran to be at the top of the "to do" list.

"Iran makes every effort to possess weapons of mass destruction on the one hand, and ballistic missiles. That is a danger to the Middle East, to Israel, and a danger to Europe", Sharon told The Times, adding that he had talked about these things with (Russian President) Vladimir Putin a few days ago and I have been to Washington. ENDS SHARON REBUKED 61102