Iran's president, at UN, defends right to use nuclear power

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took thinly veiled jabs at the United States, Israel, the United Nations and European powers here as he defended his country's ambitions to harness and use nuclear power in an address before nearly 200 world leaders.

Ahmadinejad spoke for a half hour at the UN General Assembly just hours after a speech by President George W. Bush, who has chided Iran for seeking nuclear power, saying the country's desires for such power are likely for defensive or offensive purposes, not to tap the atom for domestic energy supplies.

But Ahmadinejad said his country, which in recent weeks has drawn some criticism from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency for not fully cooperating with the monitoring agency, has the right to seek nuclear energy.

He said a number of countries, seeking to maintain their own hegemony of world affairs, try to keep Iran and other weaker nations under control by monopolizing the knowledge, resources and access to nuclear power. And he said the UN is too weak to resist actions by the dominant nations.
"A few bullying powers have sought to put hurdles in the way of the peaceful nuclear activities of the Iranian nation by exerting political and economic pressures against Iran," he said.

"These are the same powers that produce new generations of lethal nuclear arms and possess stockpiles of nuclear weapons that no international organization is monitoring; and the tragedies of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were perpetrated by one of them," he said, referring to the United States dropping the atomic bomb on the two Japanese cities in 1945, an action that ended World War II.

The IAEA has said Iran has not altogether halted its nuclear program, in violation of UN sanctions. Its report is prompting several nations to discuss a new round of sanctions on Tehran.

The United States was conspicuously absent from Ahmadinejad's speech, as no one sat in the chair reserved for a U.S. representative. But the Iranian leader was present when Bush spoke to the group.

Ahmadinejad declined to refer to Israel by name but referred to "occupying Zionists" and "Zionist murderers" when he mentioned Palestinians, adding that UN resolutions "that have addressed the plight of the Palestinian people have been relegated to the archives unnoticed."

He also called the United States and Britain "occupiers" for their roles in invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein, saying that under the "pretext" of searching for weapons of mass destruction, "millions of people have been killed or displaced, and the occupiers, without a sense of shame, are still seeking to solidify their position in the political geography of the region and to dominate oil resources."

(Source: Newsday.com)