France’s Emmanuel Macron rejects any military solution to North Korea and warns against scrapping the nuclear deal with Iran in an exclusive CNN interview.
«Why? Because we stopped everything with North Korea years and years ago. We stopped any monitoring, any discussions with them, and what’s the result? They will probably get a nuclear weapon. I don’t want to replicate that situation with Iran.»
Macron spoke to CNN during and after US President Donald Trump’s debut address, when Trump again called the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un «rocket man» and threatened to «totally destroy» North Korea.
Macron warned against harsh rhetoric. «My point is not to increase pressure by issuing words against words,» he said. «We have to decrease tension and protect people in the region.»
Any military solution to North Korea’s drive to develop ballistic nuclear missiles would result in tragedy: «Look at the map, if we talk of a military solution we speak about a lot of victims. Building peace is what we have to do in this region,» Macron said, speaking in English.
Macron said North Korea was a very good example of how not to do things, and compared the example of the East Asian nation with the current nuclear agreement with Iran, which Trump described as «one of the worst» deals the US has ever made and has threatened to tear up.
He said it would be a «big mistake» for the US to withdraw from the agreement with Iran. «I don’t think this Iran deal, this nuclear deal with Iran, is [the be all and end all] of everything to do with Iran. If President Trump considers it is not sufficient, I do agree with that. [But] we have this deal.»
«I think that the outcome of this deal is that now we have the monitoring process with international urgency following the situation, and I think it is better than nothing.
