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Merkel And Rumsfeld Take Hard Line With Iran

4 February 2006 -- The Iranian nuclear crisis topped the agenda at a high-level security conference in Munich today, with Germany and the United States urging the world to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the conference that Iran has "overstepped the mark" with its nuclear program and said Tehran must not develop nuclear weapons.

"We want, we must prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program further," Merkel said. "Iran's nuclear program understandably suggests that it is not about the peaceful usage but also about military options. Iran has blatantly crossed the red line and I have to add that the absolutely unnecessary provocations of Iran's president make it necessary for us to react."

Merkel also condemned in her speech what she called "a president who denies the existence of Israel and the Holocaust," a reference to comments made by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who addressed the conference after Merkel, said the world "did not want a nuclear Iran."

Rumsfeld said Iran was a danger to the world's peace and accused the Iranian regime of being, in his words, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism."

The remarks were made before the UN's atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, voted on 4 February to report Iran to the UN Security Council.

(AP, AFP, Reuters)

Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org