Armed action against Iran unacceptable: Mukherjee

CAIRO: India has said any unilateral armed action against Iran is totally "unacceptable and undesirable" and should be disapproved of by the international community.

"In respect of Iran, I entirely agree with the Egyptian Foreign Minister that there should be no armed engagement. In fact we are against any coercive engagement," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said after holding talks with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Abul Gheit here last night.

"The issues (with Iran) have to be resolved through dialogue and any unilateral armed action on a sovereign country, member of the United Nations is totally unacceptable, undesirable and nobody should indulge in it. It should not be acceptable to the international community," he told reporters at a joint press conference with Gheit.

New Delhi virtually rebuked Israel for its "aggressive actions" in Palestinian areas and said both countries must live in peace in the demarcated boundaries.

India does not encourage any escalation or precipitation of action by either Israel or Palestine and favours a "fair trial" for peace efforts made by all countries, including Egypt, Mukherjee, who is on a three-day visit to Egypt said.

"There must be restraint. Ultimately, all problems are to be resolved not through violence but through dialogue and all efforts which have been made by Egypt and other countries should be given a fair trial.

"Nobody should take initiative at its hand and respond in a armed manner. It is applicable to Israelis because normally they initiate the aggressive actions and equally applicable to Palestinians," he said.

India wants durable peace and both countries must live in peace in the demarcated boundaries, he added.

Mukherjee and Ghiet discussed bilateral, regional and international matters during their 90-minute meeting here last night. The two leaders had an interaction earlier in the day when Mukherjee travelled to the coastal resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh to meet President Hosni Mubarak.

"During our discussions, I briefed the Indian Foreign Minister on the situation in the Middle East, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Darfur," Ghiet said.

Lauding Egypt's role in defusing the recent crises in the Gaza Strip, Mukherjee said: "with the effective intervention of Egypt, some solutions to the problems have been found out. We shall have to continue to carry on this exercise."

India also made a strong pitch for revitalising the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) saying that the forum for developing countries had lost its grandeur but not its relevance.

"We are quite confident that with the assumption of the chair of the NAM summit, Egypt will be able to give a new impetus to the relationship and we are eager to cooperate with them as this movement was launched by three great leaders -- Nehru, Nasser and Tito in the 50s, immediately in the post colonial era," Mukherjee said.

Egypt will host the 15th NAM summit next year.

Mukherjee also expressed India's inability to help Egypt develop its civil nuclear programme as New Delhi was not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"Currently, India cannot cooperate with any country in nuclear matters because you are aware that as per the NPT arrangements only 45 countries who are members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) are eligible to engage in nuclear trade.

"India has not signed NPT and India is not a member of this 45-nation group of NSG and we are deprived of having any nuclear trade with any country," he said.