British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday that Britain and the United States were not discussing a possible military action against Iran.

At his monthly news conference, Blair rejected allegations that Britain would automatically support any future U.S.-led military intervention in Iran.

"Iran is not Iraq, nobody's talking about military invasion," Blair told reporters. "People do however want to send a very strong signal to Iran because some of the comments made by the president of Iran are totally unjustifiable."

Blair said Iran was "supporting terrorism in the region, to the detriment of democratic governments" and pointed to the nation's breach of International Atomic Energy Agency obligations.

"It is in breach of its nuclear obligations and people want it to comply. So the real issue for me in respect of Iran is well, what are you going to do about it?" Blair said.

Commenting on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's audiotape aired by the pan-Arab al-Jazeera TV channel on Sunday, Blair said the tape was a "very graphic description both of the extremism that is his political philosophy and the hatred of people who want to work with each other across the religious and racial hatred."

In the audiotape, bin Laden accused the United States and Europe of supporting a "Zionist" war on Islam by cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government. He also urged his followers to go to Sudan, his former base, to fight a proposed UN peacekeeping force.

At the news conference, Blair said that he was eager to see the Middle East peace process move forward, but he suggested that it was impossible as long as Hamas was committed to the destruction of Israel.