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Expelling the Taliban: No Easy Task for U.S. Soldiers
U.S. Troops Are Preparing to Wipe Out the Taliban in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan
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U.S. Troops Are Preparing to Wipe Out the Taliban in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan.
The hardest fighting will be along a long narrow swath of Kandahar province hugging the Arghendab River. The goal is to expel the Taliban from its command and control stronghold, thereby cutting the southern part of the country in two -- severing the Taliban communications and transportation corridor between Helmand Province and the city of Kandahar.
To accomplish the job, a massive of force of 30,000 to 35,000 U.S., Afghan and international troops have been mobilized. Kandahar city will be flooded with Afghan and U.S. military police, 16 checkpoints around the city have been erected and a system of cameras is planned.
But the real fight will be in fertile suburbs just west of the city.
Taliban strongholds in the districts of Arghendab, Zhari and Panjway will draw special attention and the bulk of the forces. The districts run from the north to the southwest of Kandahar city.
Iran scientist seeks refuge in Pakistan embassy in U.S
Iran's state radio said on Tuesday a missing Iranian nuclear scientist who Tehran says was kidnapped by the CIA, had taken refuge in Pakistan's embassy in Washington.
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"A few hours ago Shahram Amiri took refuge at Iran's interest section at the Pakistan embassy in Washington, wanting to return to Iran immediately," state radio said.
Iran and the United States cut diplomatic relations shortly after the country's 1979 Islamic revolution. The Pakistani embassy looks after Iran's interests in the United States.
Amiri, a university researcher working for Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, disappeared during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia a year ago and Tehran accused Riyadh of handing him over to the United States, which Saudi Arabia has denied.
Iran summoned the Swiss ambassador to Tehran earlier this month and handed over documents which it said showed Amiri had been kidnapped by the United States.
U.S. interests in Tehran are handled by the Swiss embassy.
Confusing video footage of Amiri has been aired in the past weeks. In one video, a man identified as Amiri, said he had been taken to the United States and tortured.
In another video that appeared on the Internet, a man also purporting to be the scientist said he was actually studying in the United States.
In a third video, a man describing himself as Amiri said he had fled from U.S. "agents" and was in hiding, urging human rights groups to help him return to Iran.
In March, ABC news said Amiri had defected to the United States and was helping the CIA.
Tehran initially refused to acknowledge Amiri's involvement in Iran's disputed nuclear program, which the West fears is being used to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says it is aimed at generating electricity.
Israeli bulldozers raze 4 east Jerusalem buildings
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Israeli bulldozers destroyed six buildings, including at least three homes, in contested east Jerusalem on Tuesday, resuming the demolition of Palestinian property after a halt aimed at encouraging peace talks.
Jerusalem house demolitions are a volatile issue because of conflicting Israeli and Palestinian claims to the city's eastern sector. Israel sees it as part of its capital city, while Palestinians want it for their own future capital.
The municipality said none of the structures razed were homes, and that all had been illegally built and were not populated. The demolitions were carried out by a court order, the municipality said in a statement.
But Palestinians disputed those claims, saying three of the demolished structures were homes and one was a warehouse. Two daybeds and bags crammed with children's clothing and kitchen utensils were strewn outside one of the buildings.
Basem Isawi, 48, an unemployed contractor, stood stony-faced amid the rubble of his unfinished home, forbidding his six children to come out of the nearby house where they currently live to see what had happened to it.
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Isawi said he built the almost-finished home illegally for about $25,000 because he was convinced the municipality would deny him a permit. He had been notified of the impending demolition but did not know when it was slated to happen, he said.
"We watched them destroy the house, and we couldn't do anything," Isawi said. Police said the demolitions were carried out without incident.
Since October, no houses had been demolished in the eastern sector of the city until Tuesday. The demolitions seemed to indicate a move a way from the unofficial freeze on them, which Israel imposed after much criticism from Washington.
On Monday, a Jerusalem municipal committee gave preliminary approval to 32 new apartments in a Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem, rolling back a decision earlier this year to quietly put new projects on hold. And in recent weeks, the municipality has begun demolishing small, uninhabited structures, such as sheds, built without permits in east Jerusalem.
Palestinians say both demolitions and settlement construction undermine their efforts to establish a state on territory Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.
Saeb Erekat, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the demolitions. "This government of Israel has been given the choice between settlements and peace and it is obvious that it chose settlements," he said.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not comment Tuesday. A spokesman for the U.S. embassy had no comment.
Israel says it is only enforcing the law against building violations, but Palestinians say discriminatory planning practices make it impossible for them to get permits, leaving them no choice but to build illegally and risk demolition.
About a third of Jerusalem's 750,000 residents are Palestinian. They have residency status in Jerusalem and receive Israeli social benefits, but do not hold Israeli citizenship.
They largely boycott municipal elections to avoid recognizing Israel's hold on east Jerusalem.
Meir Margalit, a dovish Jerusalem municipal councilman, said the demolitions were aimed at squeezing Palestinians out of the city.
"The municipality and the government are afraid that the Palestinians will become a majority in the future, and in order to stop this process they have forbidden them to build houses in order to convince them to leave the city," Margalit said.
"Coffin" bomb wounds nine in troubled Iraq province
Nine people were wounded when a bomb planted inside a symbolic coffin carried by demonstrators blew up in Iraq's troubled northern Diyala province on Tuesday.
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The blast took place in the town of Khalis, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, when relatives of the victims of previous bombings demanded severe penalties for suspected members of the Shi'ite militia Asaib al-Haq, or League of the Righteous.
Protestors accused the militia of responsibility for Tuesday's bombing.
"The bomb was a bloody message from the League of the Righteous members to deter us from asking for a fair penalty to those who took the lives of our relatives," said Haider Mahmoud, whose brother was killed when a car bomb blew up at a crowded Khalis market in May, killing at least 30 people.
At least six members of the group have been arrested and claimed responsibility for a series of blasts that killed more than 80 people in Khalis in recent months, police said. The case was referred to a criminal court in Baghdad.
Tensions have been running high in Iraq since an inconclusive March 7 parliamentary election left a power vacuum and raised concerns about a renewal of sectarian violence.
The angry crowd clashed on Tuesday with anti-riot security forces and threw stones at police, forcing them to leave the area. The demonstrators then staged a sit-in, blocking a main highway linking Diyala province with northern Iraq, police said.
Asaib al-Haq split from the Mehdi Army of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The militia was believed to be behind the 2007 abduction of British computer programmer Peter Moore and his four bodyguards in a brazen daytime raid on a fortified government building in Baghdad.
Overall violence in Iraq has dropped sharply since the sectarian warfare of 2006-07, but shootings and bombings -- often targeting the security forces, government officials or former Sunni insurgents who switched sides -- are still common.
North Korean soldiers defect to China fuelling fears of imminent military clash
An upsurge in the number of North Korean soldiers defecting into China fuelled fears of food shortages and an imminent military clash.
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Previously considered to be among the regime's most important assets, the North Korean People's Army has always been well provisioned in order to ensure the troops remain loyal.
But a poor harvest and the disastrous revaluation of the North Korean currency in November of last year has worsened the nation's already dire economic straits.
Defectors have claimed that they were required to survive on noodles made of ground corn and that meat or fish were a luxury, a journalist for Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported from the Chinese city of Shenyang.
On one stretch of the border, Chinese troops apprehended five North Korean soldiers in May alone. Prior to the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan in March, allegedly by a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine, it was rare for troops to be taken into custody on the Chinese side of the Yalu River.
The defectors have claimed that senior members of the party and the armed forces were stockpiling provisions, another indication that the regime is steeling itself for a military confrontation.
"In the past there have been cases of North Korean troops crossing the border and plundering Chinese farms for their food, which they then took back to their posts in the North," Kim Sang-hun, a human rights activist in Seoul, told The Daily Telegraph.
However, these soldiers chose to return to the North with the supplies.
Robert Dujarric, a professor of international relations specialising in North-East Asia, said the situation in North Korea was "very bad" at present, due to the poor harvest, but a more dramatic indicator of the scale of the problem would be if military officers or members of elite military units opted to follow in the footsteps of these soldiers.
The defectors apprehended by the Chinese were reportedly returned to North Korea, where they face execution.
Isreal Ready For Talks With Arab Nations
Core Issues Would Be Included
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JERUSALEM — Israel's prime minister on Sunday welcomed Arab nations' endorsement of indirect, U.S.-brokered peace talks with the Palestinians, saying he is ready to restart negotiations "at any time and at any place."
Israeli and Palestinian officials said they expect the talks to begin by early next week, and one Israeli official said the dialogue would go beyond formalities and include preliminary discussions on "core issues" in the decades-long conflict.
Details on the exact timing and scope of the talks were still being finalized Sunday, a day after the 22-member Arab League gave the Palestinians the green light for negotiations.
Despite the signs of progress, violence broke out in the West Bank during a Palestinian protest against the separation barrier Israel is building in the area. Palestinian medics said four protesters were hit by rubber bullets fired by Israeli forces in Beit Jalla, a village just outside Jerusalem.
The Israeli army said it had used "non-lethal" methods such as tear gas to disperse what it called a riot by protesters who threw rocks at forces protecting a construction zone. It said no rubber bullets were fired.
The violence is not expected to derail the latest U.S. peace initiative. U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell is scheduled to return to the region this week, and the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, is expected to give a final endorsement on Saturday.
Early Monday, the Israeli website Ynet said the Israelis planned to begin the talks on Wednesday in a meeting with Mitchell. The unsourced report said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned to personally conduct the opening negotiations.
Netanyahu had announced earlier he is willing to restart negotiations "at any time and at any place" while insisting they begin "without preconditions." He heads to Egypt on Monday to brief President Hosni Mubarak on the latest progress.
The last round of peace talks broke down in late 2008, reportedly when the sides were close to an agreement. Netanyahu's more dovish predecessor, Ehud Olmert, was in office at the time.
The Palestinians have refused to sit down with Netanyahu until he agrees to freeze all Jewish housing construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — areas they want for an independent state along with the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu has imposed a 10-month slowdown in the West Bank but has refused to include east Jerusalem in the order. The indirect talks, with Mitchell shuttling between the two sides, are seen as a compromise.
Indirect talks were set to begin in March when — during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden — Israel announced plans for building new Jewish housing units in an east Jerusalem neighborhood. The decision drew fierce criticism from the United States and led to the worst rift between the two allies in decades.
The Arab League's endorsement gives Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas critical backing to sell the indirect talks to a skeptical Palestinian public.
An Israeli government official said he hoped the talks would lead to direct peace negotiations that ultimately touch on all the contested issues between the parties — such as final borders, refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
"Israel believes that the core issues to the conflict can only be resolved in the framework of direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians," he said. "Having said that, we have agreed that in the framework of the proximity talks there can be preliminary discussions on the core issues."
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the future talks.
In an interview with the Palestinian daily Al-Ayam, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said President Barack Obama assured him that the Americans were "committed not to allow any provocative measures from any party" — an apparent reference to Israeli building in east Jerusalem. Municipal officials in the city claim Netanyahu has already unofficially frozen Jewish housing construction in east Jerusalem, despite his public claims to the contrary.
Abbas said that despite the obstacles ahead he remained hopeful.
"Sometimes I feel that in Israel there are those who don't want peace, but we have to try until the last minute," he said. "There is an effort being exerted and we shouldn't lose patience."
Abbas' rivals in the militant Islamic Hamas movement, which seized control of Gaza from Abbas' forces nearly three years ago, rejected the Arab League endorsement.
Hamas said the decision "provides a new cover for Israel to commit more crimes and violations against the Palestinian people."
Suspect: al-Qaida ordered suicide attack in NYC
NEW YORK
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They were former classmates at a New York high school, both on a mission to join the Taliban and fight U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
But when Zarein Ahmedzay and Najibullah Zazi arrived in Pakistan in the summer of 2008, two high-ranking al-Qaida operatives gave them another set of marching orders.
"They told us we would be more useful if we returned to New York City ... to conduct operations," Ahmedzay said Friday in a guilty plea that offered more chilling details of a foiled plot attack on the New York City subways last fall.
Asked by a judge in federal court in Brooklyn what kind of operations, he responded: "Suicide-bombing operations."
The attacks were to coincide with Ramadan and target landmarks, but the plan was scaled back because the conspirators didn't have enough homemade explosives.
The plea also marked the first time prosecutors named the al-Qaida operatives involved in the high-profile case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Knox identified them as Saleh al-Somali and Rashid Rauf, who were both killed in Pakistan. The U.S. Justice Department on Friday described al-Somali as the head of international operations for al-Qaida.
Al-Somali was killed in a drone strike in December. Rauf, a British militant linked to a jetliner bomb plot, was also killed in a Predator strike in November 2008.
Knox said Ahmedzay met with a third senior al-Qaida operative in a training camp in northern Waziristan in Pakistan. He has not been identified.
Prosecutors say the 25-year-old Ahmedzay — who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and other charges — joined Zazi and Adis Medunjanin, another friend from their Queens high school, on the trip to Pakistan to seek terrorism training.
Zazi, a Colorado airport van driver, admitted this year that he tested bomb-making materials in a Denver suburb before traveling by car to New York with the intent of attacking the subway system to avenge U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.
Ahmedzay, who had been licensed to drive a taxi in New York, said Friday that al-Qaida leadership encouraged the men to target "well-known structures" in New York to cause "maximum casualties." He said they also decided that the attack should occur during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, between Aug. 22 to Sept. 20.
Ahmedzay quoted heavily from a jihad verse in the Quran and urged Americans to "stop supporting the war against Islam."
"I'm thankful for myself that I didn't harm anyone, but I feel someone else will do the same thing," he said.
Prosecutors said the three settled on the subways after Zazi determined he could only make enough explosives for a smaller attack in time for Ramadan, and decided it would happen Sept. 14, 15 or 16.
Prosecutors say the attacks were modeled after the London transit system bombings in July 2005, when four suicide bombers killed 52 people and themselves in an attack on three subway trains and a bus.
The New York plot was disrupted in early September when police officials stopped Zazi's car as it entered New York.
Last month, an Afghanistan-born imam linked to the suspects pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI when asked about the men. He was sentenced to time served and ordered to leave the United States.
Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday that the plot "makes clear we face a continued threat from al-Qaida and its affiliates overseas."
"With three guilty pleas already and the investigation continuing, this prosecution underscores the importance of using every tool we have available to both disrupt plots against our nation and hold suspected terrorists accountable," he said.
Defense attorney Michael Marinaccio declined to say whether Ahmedzay was cooperating with the investigation. But he added that by agreeing to plead guilty, "there's a potential benefit to him."
Ahmedzay and Medunjanin previously pleaded not guilty to charges they sought to join Zazi in what prosecutors described as three "coordinated suicide bombing attacks" on Manhattan subway lines. Medunjanin attorney Robert C. Gottlieb said Friday his client intends to go to trial.
"This case is much different as it pertains to Mr. Medunjanin," said Gottlieb.
Officials have said a fourth suspect is in custody in Pakistan but have given no other details about him.
Liberal Democrat Leader Surges in Uk Popularity
Wins Debate
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NICK CLEGG, the Liberal Democrat leader who until a few days ago was little known to voters, is now the most popular party leader since Winston Churchill, a new Sunday Times poll reveals.
Following his decisive victory in last week’s television debate, Clegg has surged to a higher approval rating than Tony Blair at the peak of new Labour’s popularity.
Last night, as the YouGov survey showed that the three parties are almost neck and neck, Labour and the Tories desperately tried to respond to the Clegg phenomenon.
The general election has become a genuine three-way contest with the Lib Dems, on 29%, enjoying their strongest support in almost 30 years.
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Post debate poll results
Clegg’s party is one point behind Labour on 30%, with the Tories on 33% having a slender lead of three points. The poll suggests David Cameron’s Tories are on course to secure 239 seats, only 46 more than they have now.
Labour, despite being second in terms of the popular vote, would get the most seats, with about 287 MPs, giving Gordon Brown a fighting chance of clinging on as prime minister.
The number of Lib Dem MPs would increase from 63 to 93, putting them in a strong position to dictate terms in a hung parliament.
Clegg himself has an almost unprecedented approval rating of 72%, ahead of Cameron on 19% and Brown on minus 18%.
Churchill had an 83% approval rating in 1945, just a few months before he lost the general election.
The Tories, who have been the biggest victims of the Clegg surge, last night sent out one of their big hitters to attack the Lib Dems’ policies and leadership. In an interview with The Sunday Times, William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, claimed that a vote for Clegg was a vote for the “European super-state”.
Cameron, on the campaign trail yesterday, begged voters not to snub the Tories. “A hung parliament would be a bunch of politicians haggling, not deciding,” he said.
Labour stepped up its charm offensive against Clegg with Peter Hain, the cabinet minister, saying the party was ready to do deals on controversial issues such as tax and nuclear weapons.
The strategy is designed to persuade Lib Dem supporters in Labour-Tory marginals to vote tactically for Labour.
By emphasising the similar agendas of the two parties, Labour also hopes to coax Lib Dem MPs into backing Brown in a future hung parliament.
The Lib Dems last night said they would resist the squeeze from the two main parties and revealed a surge in donations, with £120,000, mainly in small sums, coming in during the 24 hours after the debate.
There has also been an eight-fold increase in visits to the party’s website, with Lib Dem strategists plotting how to capitalise on the new interest in their leader.
Clegg, speaking yesterday on a visit to the London hospital where his third son was born recently, said: “A growing number of people are starting to hope that real change and real fairness is finally possible in Britain.”
Such a three-horse race is unprecedented in post-war British history. The last time all the parties were in such close contention in a general election campaign was in the 1920s.
Most snap polls rushed out after Thursday’s debate suggested that while Clegg was the victor, Cameron had come second ahead of Brown.
The Sunday Times Poll of 1,490 adults conducted over the past two days confirmed that Clegg had been the most “impressive” with 70% backing him. But Brown took second place with 12% and Cameron, who had been considered the favourite to win the debate, trailed in third with just 10% support.
With the Tories rattled, Hague made an outspoken attack on Clegg, claiming that the former EU official and MEP was ready to “sign up for anything that has ever been on offer or proposed from the European Union”.
“It is their policy to join the euro,” Hague added. “That is completely out of step with the majority of people in the country.” He also appealed for voters to switch back to the Conservatives, claiming a hung parliament would lead to an unpopular second general election.
The Sunday Times poll suggests Hague’s appeal may fall on deaf ears. With many people unexcited by the two main parties, a total of 53% say that a hung parliament with the Lib Dems holding the balance of power would be a “good thing”.
Labour cabinet ministers last night responded to the growing popularity of the Lib Dems by offering concessions to the party’s sympathisers.
In remarks that will irritate tribal Labour members, Hain, the Welsh secretary, announced that the party should be ready to negotiate with the Lib Dems, not just on constitutional reform but also on tax and Trident.
The Lib Dems are proposing that anyone earning £10,000 or less a year should no longer pay income tax and that our submarine-based deterrent should be scrapped in favour of a cheaper system.
However, Hain, in an interview with The Sunday Times, said there was “common ground” even on these issues where traditionally the two parties have been at war.
“Their particular policies on tax do not add up at the present time,” said Hain. “However, our ambition would be to lift the burden on the lowest paid and to do it over time when it is affordable, so there is a common agenda.”
He added: “We are absolutely firmly committed to a nuclear deterrent. Within that, time scales, affordability and all of that agenda, there is scope to negotiate.”
Hain called on Clegg to set aside his personal hostility towards Brown and to prepare to work with Labour after the election. “Personal chemistry should not get in the way of the national interest,” he said.
Professor Colin Rallings of Plymouth University, the elections expert, said the Lib Dem surge was putting serious pressure on the Tories.
“At this level of distribution of votes there is no situation where Lib Dem strength benefits the Tories. They would need to be topping 40% before they would benefit from the Lib Dem resurgence,” he said.
“You have to go back to elections in the 1920s when the Liberals were split and Labour was on its way back to have this sort of three-way contest in a British general election.”
In the past week the Lib Dems have risen by 11 points from 18%, the Tories have slipped by seven points from 40% and Labour has fallen by two points from 32%.
Other polls confirmed the Lib Dem bounce, with one by BPIX for The Mail on Sunday putting the party in the lead on 32%, ahead of the Tories on 31% and Labour on 28%. A ComRes poll for the Sunday Mirror put the Lib Dems on 29%, Labour on 27% and the Conservatives in the lead on 31%.
+ An ex-soldier publicly berated Cameron for failing to help him as the Tory leader staged a walkabout in his Oxfordshire constituency. The man told Cameron: “You gave me your card and said, ‘Give me a ring and I’ll help you out’.” But the veteran insisted that Cameron had failed to respond to 30 telephone calls.
Iraq, Syria and Lebanon Supports Iran Nuke Program
Calls On Isreal To Dismantle Nuclear Program
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Arab FMs support Iran's nuclear rights
Sat, 17 Apr 2010 20:10:07 GMT
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Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon have expressed support for Iran's nuclear program and stated that Israel should be forced to dismantle its nuclear weapons.
Speaking at the nuclear disarmament conference in Tehran on Saturday, the foreign ministers of the three countries insisted that Iran has the right to develop nuclear technology meant for peaceful purposes, just like every other country.
They also called for a diplomatic solution to the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.
"We support Iran's pursuit of peaceful nuclear technology," the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) quoted Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem as saying.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Ali al-Shami said Iran's nuclear program is peaceful and Iran is not violating the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
"We reject any threat against Iran and insist on Iran's right to use peaceful nuclear energy," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.
The three foreign ministers urged Israel, which is the only player in the Middle East with a nuclear arsenal, to sign the NPT.
They also said that all of Israel's nuclear weapons must be dismantled and Tel Aviv must allow IAEA inspectors to visit its nuclear facilities.
It is believed that Israel has a stockpile of at least 250 nuclear warheads.
Obama wants Iran sanctions within 'weeks'
(AFP)
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WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama said Tuesday he wanted tough new UN sanctions imposed on Iran within "weeks" as visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy blasted Tehran's "mad" nuclear race.
But Obama admitted that key world powers had "not yet" closed wide gaps on the specifics of the biting new measures, as he and Sarkozy made an apparently coordinated effort to up pressure on China and Russia for action.
"My hope is that we are going to get this done this spring," Obama said, warning, as he faces rising domestic pressure on the issue, that he was not interested in waiting months for the new United Nations measures to be imposed.
"I am interested in seeing that regime in place within weeks," Obama said during a joint press conference with Sarkozy which saw both leaders go out of their way to profess US-French friendship.
Sarkozy indicated after his closed Oval Office talks with Obama that months of diplomacy to prepare the way for sanctions must now come to fruition.
"The time has come to take decisions. Iran cannot continue its mad race," Sarkozy said, adding that Europe would stand united in the push for sanctions.
The joint presidential pressure came as G8 foreign ministers meeting in Canada urged "in the strongest possible terms" that Iran cooperate with five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton predicted the next few weeks would see "intense negotiation" in the Security Council on Iran, which the West suspects of developing nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
The Obama administration has spent months trying to convince China, which has been reluctant to embrace tough sanctions on Iran, to join the international effort.
Russia has been more amenable, but it is still unclear whether Moscow will embrace the "biting" measures envisaged by Washington.
"Do we have unanimity in the international community? Not yet. And that's something that we have to work on," Obama said, admitting that Iran was a major oil producer and had a plethora of commercial partners.
Sarkozy and Obama said their talks also covered a long list of international issues, including Afghanistan, US peace efforts in the Middle East and the global economic recovery.
The French leader said it was "great news" that the Obama administration had now made financial reform its top priority.
The issue has provoked friction between Washington and Europe, with the United States less willing to call for stringent efforts to regulate global hedge funds than some key leaders in Europe.
Both leaders sought to scotch rumors of bad chemistry between them, calling one another by their first names, ahead of an intimate dinner hosted by the Obamas for Sarkozy and ex-supermodel wife Carla Bruni.
Obama called Sarkozy "my dear friend" and remembered how his daughter Sasha celebrated her eighth birthday in the president's Elysee Palace in Paris last year. He also recalled their first meeting three years ago when Obama was a senator.
"I immediately came to admire your legendary energy and your enthusiasm for what our countries can achieve together," Obama said.
Sarkozy appeared eager to end years of US-French tensions.
"There may be disagreements, but never for the wrong reasons. And as we are very transparent on both sides, there's confidence, there's trust," he said before the two presidents walked out of the press conference with hands over each other's shoulders.
The Sarkozys took time to sample the culinary delights of the US capital, stopping in at famed restaurant "Ben's Chili Bowl," which Obama has also visited, to eat half-smoke hot dogs.
The two leaders met at divergent moments of their political fortunes.
Sarkozy was forced to backtrack on some of his signature reforms, and suffered a humiliation in recent regional elections.
But Obama is reveling in his historic health reform law and clinched a landmark nuclear arms reduction deal with Russia last week.
The private dinner between the couples marks the first time a foreign leader has dined with the Obamas in their private residence at the White House and is seen as a fence-mending exercise after Obama bowed out of a European summit.
"You invite an important head of state to a state dinner, but a friend you invite to your home," said one western diplomat.
But the White House denied it was going out of its way to satisfy Sarkozy with presidential trappings.
"It doesn't seem totally out of the ordinary," Gibbs said.
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