Monday, February 13 2006 09:01 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday (Feb 12,2006) that violent protests in the Muslim world over caricatures of the Prophet against Western embassies.

'If people continue to incite it, it can spin out of control,'' she said of the protests. Last week, demonstrators in Iran attacked the Danish, French and Austrian embassies with stones and firebombs.

The Governments of Iran and Syria, Rice said, organize street protests whenever they want to make a point.

"Everybody understands that there's a sense of outrage, that these cartoons were inappropriate in the Muslim world," Rice said.

"But you don't express your outrage by going out and burning down embassies. ... You express your outrage peacefully," she said.

Separately, Rice said a 'tremendous coalition' of nations has joined in saying that Iran has a right to a peaceful nuclear program but not technologies that could lead to nuclear weapons.

"Nobody trusts them with that because they've been lying to the international community for 18 years," Rice said of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

"The Iranians now need to step back, look at where they are, see that they're isolated on this issue and get back into negotiations," she said.