South Africa warns over a conflict with Iran

Most countries have in the past till now told any conflict wether an air strike or an invasion of iran is unnacceptable and they will not take it.

JOHANNESBURG, March 30 (Reuters) - South African President Thabo Mbeki called on Thursday for a "sensible" handling of the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme to avert yet another conflict in the region.

Mbeki, whose government tried unsuccessfully to keep negotiations on the Iran issue within the U.N. nuclear agency IAEA, told parliament that referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council could ultimately lead to confrontation.

"As a government we are generally concerned about the situation in the Middle East," Mbeki said in a question-and-answer session in the Cape Town-based assembly.

"There is a lot of instability -- the Palestine-Israel problem, the Iraq problem, tensions arising about Syria and Lebanon, the situation in Afghanistan.

"It would seem to us that the most sensible thing to do is not to increase the troubled spots in the region, but to reduce them."

Mbeki's envoy, Abdul Minty, argued his country's case at a special board meeting of the of the IAEA in February but lost out to a consensus decision for a greater involvement of the Security Council in the dispute with Iran.

today.reuters.com...

[edit on 30-3-2006 by Mehran]

I believe this is significant.One more country thats warned of a confrontation.

South africa is well respected in the UN.I believe theres more nations to come.

I would think ANY country would warn of using force in this Iranian nuclear conflict. Iran has stated it would retaliate to any attack, and is being stubborn on handling the issue diplomatically. I have been sitting on the sidelines of this issue in ATS and appreciating the insight from an Iranian, Mehran. Your country sir, has the chance to prevent any confrontation, economically and forcefully. However, by conducting major military exercises, i get the sence your country knows what it is getting into. Dont underestimate the sanity of Bush. You will unfortunatley be hearing from the US and co. soon. You dont need these latest developments to lead you to that conclusion. I believe this has been planned for quite sometime.

What is South Africa going to do exactly? Come to the ME and kick the US out? I dont think so. They didnt even give a warning, it was their opinion if anything anyhow. This is their position on the issue and they are entitled to it, but if they think they can solve the Middle Easts problems Ill tell em to have at it. Theres not a damn country outside of the ME, that can fix the ME's problems. Its gotta be worked out in house and I just dont see it happening. Most of the ME violence is sectarian in nature and its something those who arent part of any of these sects will ever understand. But what the west can sort out is an attitude problem. The UN is a worthless body who gets nothing done. The diplomacy that they are seeing to now, is only buying Iran more time in my opinion. They take the bait hook, line, and sinker and keep on giving them extensions and scheduling more worthless talk. I say we get this little scrap over with now, and save all the BS for another day, because we all know its coming no matter how many talks they have with the UN.

You are right ludaChris

The only ones who can solve this problem is ME.

But that also means that the US cant solve this problem either.

You are not gonna get any further by bombing Iran, that only makes it worse.

Just look at the problems US have in iraq.