President Barack Obama and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, stood united Saturday in efforts to thwart Iran's disputed nuclear ambitions and bring about a Mideast peace that provides for separate Israeli and Palestinian states. Sarkozy also agreed with Obama's call for Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank, and said his country would take some detainees currently held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, as the United States has asked. Obama welcomed the support and said that he and Sarkozy will work “in close collaboration” on many issues, including anti-terrorism strategy. “We want peace. We want dialogue. We want to help them develop. But we do not want military nuclear weapons to spread and we are clear on that,” said Sarkozy, who hosted Obama for private talks in this Normandy city before commemorating the D-Day invasion that cemented the transatlantic alliance. Sarkozy said he worries about “insane statements” by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Obama, in turn, reaffirmed that there must be “tough diplomacy” with Tehran and said Iran's actions are contrary to its leaders' insistence that the country does not seek nuclear weapons. Obama urged Europe on Saturday to reach out to Muslims around the world as he again disagreed with French President Nicolas Sarkozy over Turkey's bid to join the European Union. Obama, who was praised this week for a speech seeking a new beginning in Western relations with the Islamic world, was asked about France's opposition to Turkish EU membership and its ban on Muslim veils in schools. “I've said publicly that I think Turkish membership of the EU would be important,” Obama told reporters at a joint news conference with Sarkozy before they attended commemorations for the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in northern France. “Now, President Sarkozy, as a member of the EU, has a different view,” he said. The US president is rounding out a Mideast and European swing in Normandy, whose cliffs and coastline are still pocked with gun batteries and other remnants of World War II. He will honor the 65th anniversary of the June 6, 1944, invasion, which was pivotal to the Allied victory against the Nazis. There's a personal side for Obama. His grandfather, Stanley Dunham, came ashore at Omaha Beach six weeks after D-Day. Dunham's older brother Ralph hit Omaha on D-Day plus four.
