France's FM Bernard Kouchner, says it has been many years since the world faced a crisis as dangerous as that prompted by Iran's nuclear programme. He said: "We have to find a peaceful solution". Later, in a video interview with the FT, he said he hoped to work with colleagues in the EU on sanctions

but "not impose them for the time being". EU FMs meet to discuss proposals for unilateral sanctions that could be adopted before the UN Security Council agrees multilateral measures. Attempts to extend existing UN sanctions have been delayed until November, to assess the outcome of Iran's talks with inspectors from the IAEA over its nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is purely peaceful. Kouchner told the FT that it would be "more powerful" if sanctions on Iran's economy - "not on the people of Iran" - were combined with the offer of a political solution, but he said this would take "some weeks". Taking questions from delegates at the Women's Forum for the Economy and Society in Deauville, France, where he talked about the development of a humanitarian foreign policy, he said that while the reasons for the Iranian crisis was "simple to outline, the solution, if there is one, is very difficult to envisage". EU member states are said to be divided over the issue, with Austria, Germany and Italy among the EU countries that oppose a French proposal for European sanctions without a new UN mandate.