Tehran expressed an official protest to Paris over sharp pronouncements by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, addressed to his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

State television reported on Thursday that the French ambassador to Iran was summoned to the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday evening where he was told of unacceptability of statements by Sarkozy who precluded a possibility of direct talks with the head of the Iranian executive power.

The French diplomat “was warned of consequences” which can influence bilateral relations as a result of such “rash words”.

Sarkozy underlined last Monday that he regards as “impossible to shake the hand of a man who dared to say that Israel should be wiped out from the world map”. He also noted that Ahmadinejad is not allegedly a full-fledged “representative of the leadership of the Islamic Republic and the more so of the people of that country”. having in mind that not the president, but the spiritual leader – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – is the head of the Iranian state.