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Sarkozy calls nuclear Iran 'unacceptable'

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A nuclear-armed Iran is "unacceptable", French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the Israeli parliament on Monday.
TEL AVIV, June 23 (RIA Novosti) -- A nuclear-armed Iran is "unacceptable", French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the Israeli parliament on Monday.

Israel has repeatedly warned that it believes Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon program.

"A nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable," he said. "France has always been a friend of Israel and will always stand up to those who call for its destruction."

"Israel must know that it is not alone in fighting against Iran's nuclear ambitions," he said.

Iran refuses to recognize Israel, considering it illegally established on Palestinian land, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly questioned the existence of Israel.

The Iranian president has said Israel must be wiped off the world map and called on Europe or North America to host a Jewish state, sparking Western outrage and increasing pressure on Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.

The EU has agreed new sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program, banning the country's major commercial bank, Bank Melli, from operating in Europe. The measures, which will stop the operations of the bank at its offices in London, Hamburg and Paris, were approved during a meeting of EU agriculture and fisheries ministers in Luxembourg.

Iran said earlier on Monday it is ready to discuss new incentives to halt its controversial nuclear program, but only if the West reviews solutions to global problems Tehran submitted in May to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Those proposals on nuclear non-proliferation and other international security issues included how to solve the ongoing international controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear program.

But the six world powers - the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany - have demanded that Iran impose a moratorium on uranium enrichment prior to any talks on the issue.

Iran is currently under three sets of relatively mild UN Security Council sanctions for defying demands to halt uranium enrichment, which it says it needs purely for electricity generation despite Western accusations that the program is geared toward weapon production.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, has been investigating Iran's nuclear activity for more than five years but so far has been unable to determine whether its nuclear program has military ramifications.

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