NNA - Israel and France share a "common" goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, the Israeli foreign minister said in Paris on Thursday.

Western countries including the United States have long accused Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapon, which Tehran has denied, insisting its enrichment activities were solely for peaceful purposes.

"The most extremist regime in the world shouldn't possess the most dangerous weapon in the world," Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters.

"This objective to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapon is a common objective of France and Israel."

Israel is the region's sole, if undeclared, nuclear-armed state. It has long made preventing any rival from matching this capability its top defence priority.

Saar, who met France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot earlier Thursday, stressed that Iran was a threat to the entire region and not just to Israel, adding Israel was in talks with France, Britain and the United States.--AFP

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