Blair Warns Iran Over UN Defiance

ePolitix:

The prime minister has said Iran would be making a "very serious mistake" by pressing ahead with its nuclear activity in the face of a united opposition from the international community. Tony Blair acknowledged there was a possibility that without the threat of military action against Iran the country may carry on defying the UN's request to cease all uranium enrichment programmes.

But he said it would be wrong for Iran to assume that because of the number of forces deployed in both Iraq and Afghanistan, there was no appetite for action against the Tehran regime.

Speaking to the Commons liaison committee, Blair stressed there were no current plans to take military action but he would not rule it out as a future possibility.

"But it is interesting that over the past few months there has been a change of mood in Europe as well as in the United States," he added. READ MORE

Asked what would happen now, Blair said the first step was reporting Iran to the UN security council and the UK now had to discuss with allies how to proceed.

He acknowledged the committee's concerns that the situation in Iran was an increasing security issue.

The government was well aware of the dangers associated with a nuclear armed Iran, but they were "trying to pursue it through peaceful and democratic means", the prime minister said.

"That is our intention and that is our desire."

And the concern over Iran was "not just because of their nuclear activity but because they are supporting terrorists".

But he stressed there was still hope for a peaceful way forward and there was still room for agreement with Iran over its future activities.

And he agreed there was a potential "domino effect" if dealing with Iran made it easier to tackle problems with other countries such as Syria and Lebanon.

"Our future security depends on sorting out the stability of that region," he said.

"My political view starts from the world being inter-connected.

"I think it is very, very obvious now that the nature of the global threat we face arises out of the combination of circumstances you have in the Middle East.

"And we need a very clear vision and strategy that is about the encouragement of democracy, stability and human rights in every part of it."

On the issue of sanctions against Iran, Blair said the international community were working together and that was an important element of the situation.

But he said there had been no official assessment of the effect that sanctions would have on the UK, for example on oil prices.

The prime minister was also questioned by MPs on the recent election result in Palestine which saw terrorist group Hamas elected to power.

He said the most important thing was to find a way to help the people of Palestine and Israel, but warned it would be difficult to help a government that is bent on destroying the state of Israel.

"The danger is we want a two-state solution and now we have one of the partners saying we actually want a one-state solution," said Blair.

"We have to respect the mandate, we cannot ignore that", he said. "We and President Bush are prepared to move this whole process forward but it's hard to do that when one of the parties is saying we want rid of the other party."