Mitterrand Warns Iraq on Attempts to Get Nuclear Arms or Harm Kurds

French President Francois Mitterrand warned Iraq on Sunday that an attempt to acquire nuclear arms or persecute the Kurds could invite another allied attack.

In his traditional Bastille Day interview, Mitterrand said renewed military action against Iraq would be justified, “in order to protect populations martyred, persecuted, massacred by Saddam Hussein’s government, or should this country arm itself with nuclear weapons.”

“The decision to bomb Iraqi nuclear sites would have to be taken with my consent” and “we are ready to do it, if needed,” he said.

The French president seemed disappointed that the allied victory over Iraq in the Persian Gulf War failed to resolve the most urgent and longstanding conflicts in the region.

A settlement of “pending and burning issues of the Middle East — the Israeli-Arab conflict, the situation in Lebanon, among others — would be the logical outcome of a victory that wouldn’t then have a bitter taste,” he said.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens was skeptical that Iraq would abide by the July 25 U.N. deadline to disclose its weapons of mass destruction.

But he considered it unlikely that the United States and its allies would attack Iraq as soon as the deadline expired.

He said Israel did not plan to reinstate any of the emergency measures it adopted during the Gulf war.

Foreign Minister David Levy told reporters after Sunday’s Cabinet meeting that Israel has no reason to fear Iraq’s weapons because it has the necessary means to counter them.

(JTA correspondent Gil Sedan in Jerusalem contributed to this report.)