French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Tuesday expressed his deep concern about Iran's announcement that it had entered "industrial level" stage of nuclear fuel production, considering it as a "bad signal."

"I deplore yesterday's announcement which is a bad signal. I once again appeal to Iranian authorities to abide by the resolutions of the UN Security Council calling for the suspension of all sensitive nuclear activities," the minister declared in a statement.

"I'm appealing to Iran to seize the opportunity to open dialogue with Germany, China, the United States, France, Britain and Russia who provided it once again in the declaration by the six ministers during the adoption of resolution 1747," Douste-Blazy said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday announced that his country had become one of the countries capable of producing "industrial level" nuclear fuel in the world.

French foreign ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei on Tuesday stated that these declarations had already sent the "bad signal."

The international community should nevertheless await a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in order to fully understand the consequences of these latest declarations in terms of technology and material, Mattei added.

While responding to a question on the possibility of war in Iran, the spokesman recalled that France's position on this issue as expressed many times by the president, the prime minister and the foreign minister, excluding the military option and advocating the "diplomatic logic" and the "diplomatic process" in which the U.S. is also involved.

Source: Xinhua