The United States has no plans to attack either Iraq or Iran, US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell reiterated in a French television interview to be broadcast last night.
Speculation of an attack on Iraq rose again this week after President Bush said the United States would "deal with" Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, whom it accuses of developing weapons of mass destruction.
But Mr Powell told France 3 television there were no attack plans either for Iraq or Iran, two of the three states alongside North Korea named by Mr Bush as part of an "axis of evil."
"We have no attack plan on the desk of the President of the United States," he said of Iraq, according to the text of an interview to be broadcast by France 3 in the evening.
"I have not made such a recommendation yet and neither has the Secretary of Defense. We are determined that the world should come together and see the danger that this regime presents to the world," he said.
He added in the interview, conducted in Washington on March 14th, there were "no plans on the President's desk to attack Iran."
Mr Powell, who said last week Mr Bush had seen no plans to attack Iraq, rejected charges that the president's verbal attacks on Baghdad were evidence of a "unilateralist" approach to world problems.
"This is the United States clearly pointing out to the rest of the world that we should all have a problem with the nature of this regime, and all of us should work together to get the UN inspectors back in...," he said.