[English text based on a transcript provided by the BBC's "Hardtalk" programme.]

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Q: One of the things that you did do when you were in Beirut was to meet the Iranian Foreign Minister. You said Iran was a stabilizing force. How can Iran be a stabilizing force when it's arming Hezbollah?

THE MINISTER: No, what I said, and what seems to be important today is to make clear what I've said about Iran. President Chirac said this on 26 July: Iran has a share of responsibility in this conflict. Consequently, I say that it has a share in finding a solution.

Iran wishes to appear as a country which is playing an important role. And I say this to Iran: "Live up to your responsibilities". I'd like to explain things. I believe that we should talk now to Iran to say: "You have an opportunity to show that you want to re-establish ties of trust with the international community. If you don't, then obviously it's going to be over." France, because we are chairing the UN Security Council, asked the Security Council a few days ago to take sanctions against Iran if it doesn't give a positive answer to what we're proposing to them on the nuclear question.

Q: And yet George Bush says Iran must be isolated. The Iranian President talks of wiping Israel off the map, he talks of a war of destiny, he talks of the annihilation of the Zionist regime. Is it realistic to bring the Iranians into the fold at this point?

THE MINISTER: We were shocked by the words of Mr Ahmadinejad, and I was the first Western foreign minister to condemn what Mr Ahmadinejad said. As we speak, we are perhaps a few days away from a dreadful flare-up. So we must do everything to explain to all those involved, and so to Iran, that it is necessary to urge de-escalation and, above all, forge ties of trust between Iran and the international community on the Israeli-Lebanese issue and on the nuclear issue while there is still time. The Americans and British agree with us when we make positive proposals to Iran. And therefore we have to be coherent and up until 22 August so long as the Iranians haven't said "no" to our proposals, so long as the hand of the West, the international community is outstretched, they have to take it. If they don't take it, it would obviously be very serious. We have to be very firm and very rigorous with respect to the Iranian issue.

Q: And yet it is realistic, because the Iranian President talked about a jihad against the United States, and George Bush and Tony Blair are talking about an elemental struggle, a battle against global extremism. Is what we're seeing between Israel and Hezbollah, is it actually a proxy war between the United States and Iran or even bigger, between the West and militant Islam?

THE MINISTER: That's precisely what I was saying. We must, at all costs, prevent this. It would be an absolute catastrophe. So before saying that that's what it's all about, we must do everything to avoid it. We have to meet them and say to them that they have a choice between, on the one hand, the clash you're talking about that would have dreadful consequences for decades, and on the other, peace and trust amongst us.

My role today, the role of all the foreign ministers today and the international community is to say to them: "Take our hand while there's still time." Otherwise, it would be the beginning of sanctions under Chapter 7, Article 41, of the UN Charter

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