TEHERAN - Iran criticised France on Sunday for adopting an ‘unfriendly’ position in Teheran’s nuclear row with the West and setting up a military base in the Gulf which it said would harm peace in the oil-rich region.A Foreign Ministry spokesman suggested that Iran would respond in kind after Paris last week summoned its ambassador over anti-Israeli remarks made by its hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ‘So far, our policies regarding France and their unfriendly stances have been restrained, but if they continue this trend we will also review our stances,’ the spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, told a news conference.
Hosseini criticised a deal Paris signed with the United Arab Emirates to build FranceÂ’s first permanent military installation in the Gulf, just across the water from Iran. The base, housing 400 to 500 personnel, will keep France within reach of sea lanes through which over a third of global oil shipments pass. The French Defence Ministry on Jan. 31 said forces from France, the UAE and Qatar would hold their first joint war games in the Gulf later this month.
‘We are against any kind of increase in the military presence of foreign forces in the region,’ Hosseini said in comments carried by Iran’s Press TV. ‘We do believe that such a presence is not conducive to the security and peace in the region.’
Referring to Israel, Hosseini said France was ‘ignoring the Zionist regime’s crimes’ against Palestinians: ‘We will surely express our objections by summoning the French ambassador.’
On Friday, the French Foreign Ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador to Paris over a new verbal attack on Israel last week by Ahmadinejad who in the past has called for the Jewish state to be ‘wiped off the map.’