The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Paris

French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed Thursday that he would not hold talks with Taliban militia in Afghanistan, Hamas in the Palestinian territories nor Iran's president.

Signalling a tough stance on some of the world's troublespots and defending his decision to send extra troops to Afghanistan, Sarkozy said that if France abandons the Afghan government "Pakistan will fall like a house of cards".

"We are in Afghanistan next to the Afghans," Sarkozy said in a primetime television interview.

"Next to Afghanistan there is Pakistan, there is an atomic bomb," he added. "If we let Afghanistan fall, Pakistan will fall like a house of cards.

Sarkozy this month announced that France would send an extra 700 troops to Afghanistan but he said "this is not a war, as the immense majority of Afghans need the coalition that is there."