L'AQUILA, Italy, July 9 (UPI) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday Iran has until the Group of 20 Pittsburgh summit in September to respond to U.S. diplomatic overtures.

L'AQUILLA, Italy, July 9 (UPI) -- The Syrian government is upholding its commitment to respect the sovereignty of Lebanon, the French president said at the G8 summit in Italy.

L'AQUILA, Italy, July 9 (UPI) -- The Group of Eight nations have given Iran until September to agree to negotiations over its controversial nuclear program or face harsher sanctions.

PARIS, July 8 (UPI) -- France is working for the release of a university student arrested in Iran on charges of spying, a French government spokesman said.

BRUSSELS, July 8 (UPI) -- Yesterday in Brussels, NATO kicked off a yearlong process to draft a new strategic concept. The last strategic concept was adopted a decade ago at the Washington Summit marking the alliance's 50th anniversary, when NATO was at war in what turned out to be a 78-day bombing campaign to stop Serbia and its autocratic leader Slobodan Milosevic's ruthless campaign of slaughter in Kosovo labeled mildly as ethnic cleansing. But, in many ways, the challenges today are greater than at any time in NATO's 60-year history.

EVIAN, France, July 8 (UPI) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, meeting one-on-one before the G8 summit, agreed on the need for stimulus spending.

ROME, July 7 (UPI) -- European leaders will try to convince emerging economies like India and China at this week's Group of Eight summit in Italy to commit to halving the world's greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

EVIAN, France, July 6 (UPI) -- The world economy still faces grave threats unless world leaders unite on further action, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday in Evian, France.

JERUSALEM, June 30 (UPI) -- Israeli media harshly criticized the French president's advice to Israel's prime minister to get rid of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.