Despite Israel’s legitimate concerns over its national security, signing a nuclear deal with Iran will provide Tel Aviv with more guarantees than if the deal was to fail, former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told RT.
RT:France is widely accused of blocking a breakthrough
during the previous talks - was that the case? Especially bearing
in mind that France's position on Iran has always been more or
less the same.
Dominique de Villepin: That’s not exactly true because I
was the one leading negotiations in 2003 and at the time, during
Jacques Chirac’s presidency, we got an agreement with the UK,
Germany and Iran. It was today’s President Rouhani that was a
negotiator. And then under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy the
position got a little bit different and tougher. But I believe
today what we have to understand, all of us, is that we have a
great opportunity.
It’s a great opportunity for the region, a great opportunity for
the world community, because of the political change in Iran,
because of president Rouhani, because of the stronger position of
the moderates and the reformers in this country. So I believe
that everything should be done to get a breakthrough, and this
week this breakthrough is possible.
There are three main questions that are on the table: the first
one is the question of the nuclear plants in Iran; the second one
is the right for enrichment of uranium, and it’s a difficult
question and it has to be in face of the 1970 signing of the NPT;
and the third question is what who we do with the stockpile of
the enriched uranium, which today Iran has in a great quantity,
approximately 180 kilos of uranium enriched up to 20%. But on
these different questions we have technical answers, now we have
to look for the wording of the text, and I believe that we are
very close with different countries, the 5+1 (5 countries of the
Security Council and Germany) and Iran, we are very close to an
agreement. The question is how much are we ready to take a risk
to sign the agreement, and I think to assess the importance of
this agreement, we must understand that it is a process.
Of course we are not going to get a final agreement from scratch
on Wednesday, but we can go into the process of agreement with an
interim agreement and we can progress and have a final agreement
that will be better. So I think it’s a chance and we should take
it. It is in the interests of the region because it will have
strong consequences on the situation in Syria, on the situation
in Lebanon, on the peace process. So this can change completely
the dynamic of the region for good. On the contrary, if we don’t
sign the agreement, if we don’t take all chances to sign this
agreement, we may have strong consequences and we may face a
strike on Iran coming from Israel.
RT:Sure. And of course this is a combined effort of
all the participants. Talking about previous talks again, the US
has adopted a more positive approach here compared to previous
negotiations - what do you make of the idea that France is
playing out a good-cop/bad-cop scenario with the US and real
decision-makers are still the US and Israel here?
DV: Well, France has a strong legitimacy in this
discussion because France for many years has been involved since
the start of the negotiations with Iran, French diplomacy knows
well Iran and knows well the question of proliferation. Second,
France of course has a temptation to take advantage of the
withdrawal of the US in the region. France has a very good
relationship with Saudi Arabia, with the conservative monarchies
of the Gulf and of course has today a strong position with
Israel. But this should help France to take the risk of going
forward and to finalize an agreement.
We have the technical capacities, we have the technical
knowledge, and I believe that Iran today is ready to do a big
step forward, so we have really to put pressure in order to sign
this agreement, we should not let this opportunity pass because
we know that the consequences for the region will be worse than
everything, it might be a signal for war in the region, that of
course nobody wants.
RT:Many are accusing Paris of siding with Israel. How
big of a role does Israel play in all this?
DV: Well of course Israel has a strong concern about its
security and of course we are in a position and willing to
guarantee the security of Israel. So I believe that Israel of
course has legitimate concerns about its security, but I believe
signing an agreement with Iran will give to Israel a lot more
guarantees than not signing. Today we have technical answers.
There’s a willingness of the IAEA, the International Atomic
Agency to control the situation in Iran.
So I believe we have done such work in order to answer the
legitimate concerns of Israel that we should be able to sign an
agreement. Of course there’s a lot of people in Israel that still
don’t want to change anything because Iran is the old enemy and
Israel wants to keep the situation as it is, but I believe that
for everybody, if we want to solve the problem of the region,
whether it’s Syria, whether it is the situation in Lebanon, we’ve
seen this horrible terrorist attack in Lebanon, whether we want
to go forward with the peace process - we need to go forward and
we need to reintegrate Iran in the regional community. So of
course it is a big change. Of course everything will be
different if this agreement is signed. But it is in the common
interest of the whole region.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.