U.S., France united on Iran, Mideast peace
CAEN, France — President Barack Obama and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, stood united Saturday in efforts to thwart Iran's disputed nuclear ambitions and bring about a Mideast peace that provides for separate Israeli and Palestinian states.
"We want peace. We want dialogue. We want to help them develop. But we do not want military nuclear weapons to spread, and we are clear on that," said Sarkokzy, who hosted Obama for private talks in this Normandy city before commemorating the D-Day invasion that cemented the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Sarkozy said he worries about "insane statements" by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Obama, in turn, reaffirmed there must be "tough diplomacy" with Tehran and said Iran's actions are contrary to its leaders' insistence that the country does not seek nuclear weapons.
Obama said he wants to see greater U.S.-Russian efforts to limit nuclear weapons and said his work against nuclear proliferation and the efforts toward that end by other countries should signal Iran's leaders that they are not being singled out for rebuke.
On other matters, Sarkozy also agreed with Obama's call for Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and said his country would take some detainees currently held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, as the United States has asked.
Obama welcomed the support and said he and Sarkozy will work "in close collaboration" on many issues, including antiterrorism strategy.
The two countries clearly have their differences; France has resisted U.S. appeals for greater efforts to stimulate European economies and more European troops in Afghanistan, where the United States has stepped up its engagement under Obama's administration.
But the relationship that turned frosty under George W. Bush largely because of the Iraq war has seemed to thaw some with Sarkozy and Obama at the helm of their respective countries. Both have expressed fondness for each other — and did so again Saturday.
The first couples of each country — Obama and his wife Michelle and Sarkozy and model-turned-singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy — greeted each other warmly with grins, hugs and, for the women, double kisses on the cheeks outside of the French Prefecture, as several hundred people cheered, shrieked and waved small French and American flags from behind security barriers around the regional headquarters. Police surrounded the crowd from all sides.
Obama and Sarkozy shook a few of the onlookers' hands and listened to each country's national anthem in the gravel palace courtyard before heading down the red carpeted walkway to retreat inside for private talks over lunch.
The U.S. president is rounding out a Mideast and European swing in Normandy, whose cliffs and coastline are still pocked with gun batteries and other remnants of World War II. He will honor the 65th anniversary of the June 6, 1944, invasion, which was pivotal to the Allied victory against the Nazis.
