Europeans considering sanctions against Tehran

PARIS —  European leaders are considering their own economic sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt its nuclear program, France’s foreign minister said Sunday.

Bernard Kouchner also warned that the international community should be prepared for the possibility of war if Iran obtains atomic weapons.

The U.S. and other world powers accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons; Tehran says its uranium enrichment activities are aimed at producing energy.

Negotiations and two sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions have failed to persuade Iran to halt the program.

Speaking on RTL radio, Kouchner called for “more effective sanctions” against Iran if it continued to resist demands to suspend uranium enrichment.

“We will not accept that such a bomb is made. We must prepare ourselves for the worst,” he said, specifying that could mean a war. He did not elaborate on what kind of preparations that would entail.

“We have decided, while negotiations are underway . . . to prepare for eventual sanctions outside the United Nations, which would be European sanctions,” he said.

Kouchner was not specific about what penalties Europe might impose, other than to say they could be “economic sanctions regarding financial movements.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy last month mentioned the possibility of an attack on Iran, which he said would be as “catastrophic” as Tehran getting a nuclear bomb.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the Bush administration was committed, for now, to using “diplomatic and economic means” to counter a potential nuclear threat.