PARIS, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The French Prime Minister Dominique deVillep in said on Thursday that military action against Iran over its nuclear program "is not the solution."

    "My conviction is that military action is certainly no solution," Villepin told a monthly news conference. "We know that not only would it not solve anything, but that sometimes [such action] worsens the situation. We saw that in a clear way with Iraq."

    "We cannot solve the problems of this complex region only with force," he added.

    "There is no magic wand by way of a military shortcut that will help us solve the Iranian problem. It doesn't seem to me necessarily, today, something that should happen," he stressed.

    He suggested that the UN Security Council (UNSC) send a "sufficiently credible, sufficiently strong, sufficiently united" message to Iran, to make it to comply with the UNSC's orders.

    "We need to find a path that lets us control the situation on the ground and lets us punish if there is a risk of proliferation,without going as far as the military option," he said, noting that military intervention was not the answer, citing the example of the U.S.-led Iraqi war.

    A meeting of the five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany broke up in Paris on Tuesday without reaching agreement on a common stand over Iran.

    The United States, Britain and France have circulated a UNSC resolution demanding that Iran stop its uranium enrichment activity, otherwise they (UNSC) have indicated they might push for targeted sanctions. The United State has refused to rule out military action.

    At the Paris meeting, Washington called on the international community to "be united and send a very firm message" to Iran on its nuclear program.

    "The (UN) Security Council has no option but to proceed with the Chapter 7 resolution," which can open the door to sanctions, even to military action as the last resort, said Nicholas Burns, the U.S. Vice Secretary of State on Tuesday.

    However, Russia objected to sanctions against the Middle East country.

    A UN Security Council foreign ministers' meeting will continue the discussion next Monday in New York. Enditem