Israel on way to collapse: Iran's Ahmadinejad

Updated on : Sunday, April 18, 2010

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that Israel, the "main instigator of conflict" in the Middle East, was on its way to collapse and that regional powers wanted it uprooted.

In a speech marking annual Army Day, the president also reiterated his view that the presence of foreign forces is causing conflict in the region.

"The Zionist regime is on its way to collapse," Ahmadinejad, known for his strong anti-Israel rhetoric, said in an address delivered near the shrine of Imam Khomeini, Iran's revolutionary leader.

"This is the will of the regional nations that after 60 odd years, the root of this corrupt microbe and the main reason for insecurity in the region be pulled out."

Ahmadinejad, who previously has angered Israel and Western countries for asserting that the Holocaust is a "myth", said that the "murderess" Jewish state was behind turmoil in the region.

"This regime is the main instigator of sedition and conflict in the region," the hardliner, flanked by Iran's top military brass, said from the podium.

"I want its supporters and creators to stop backing it and allow the regional nations and the Palestinians to settle things with them," he said without elaborating.

Ahmadinejad also demanded foreign forces quit the region.

"The presence of foreign forces is the cause of conflict in our region. They must leave," he said, adding that Iran's military might was enough of a "deterrent" for any "enemy" of the Islamic republic.

Iranian officials, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have regularly blamed the presence of US forces in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan for instability in the region.

Iran wants 'atomic criminal' US suspended from IAEA

Updated on : Saturday, April 17, 2010

TEHRAN: Top Iranian officials slammed "atomic criminal" the United States on Saturday and called for its suspension from the UN atomic watchdog as Tehran hosted a two-day nuclear disarmament conference.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to the conference, said the use of nuclear weapons was "haram", meaning religiously prohibited, and branded Washington as the world's "only atomic criminal."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went a step further and called for Washington's suspension from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) along with all other nations who possess nuclear arms.

"Only the US government has committed an atomic crime. The world's only atomic criminal lies and presents itself as being against nuclear weapons proliferation, while it has not taken any serious measures in this regard," Khamenei said in his message which was read out at the start of the meeting.

Ahmadinejad, under whose presidency Iran has pushed ahead with its controversial nuclear programme, called for a global supervision of nuclear disarmament.

"An independent international group which plans and oversees nuclear disarmament and prevents proliferation should be set up," the hardliner said as he opened the conference attended by several foreign ministers and officials from the United Nations.

He said those who "possess, have used or threatened to use nuclear weapons be suspended from the IAEA and its board of governors, especially the US which has used a weapon made of atomic waste in the Iraq war."

Ahmadinejad did not elaborate on that charge.

Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have been infuriated in recent days with Washington over its new nuclear policy, which limits the countries against which it might use its nuclear arsenal, but singles out Iran and North Korea as exceptions.

Ahmadinejad even called for the review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of which Iran is a member and so considers its right to enrich uranium despite three sets of UN sanctions.

"The review of the NPT must be done by independent countries who do not possess nuclear arms," he said.

The Tehran conference, which comes just days after Washington held its high-profile nuclear summit, aims to "discuss nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and the use of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, which are the bases of the Non-Proliferation Treaty," Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as saying on Friday.

Salehi has also said in recent days that the conference would serve as preparation for the next NPT review meeting in New York early next month, which Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki plans to attend.

Iran criticised the 47-nation nuclear disarmament summit in Washington hosted by US President Barack Obama, on the grounds that the United States holds one of the world's largest stocks of nuclear weapons.

At the summit, Obama pressed China and other UN Security Council skeptics to back a fourth set of sanctions against Iran for its controversial uranium enrichment programme that Western states say masks a drive for atomic arms.

Foreign ministers from Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, the Central African Republic, Oman, Turkmenistan, Armenia and Swaziland are participating in the Tehran conference, while Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are represented by their deputy foreign ministers, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.

Mehmanparast said a special aide of the Chinese foreign minister, representatives of the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the chief of Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) will also be present.

"Due to the eruption of the volcano (in Iceland), some foreign ministers from South America and Africa who had connecting flights may come later or tomorrow. Among them are also some experts of weapons of mass destructions and nuclear weapons," he added.

Islam opposes nuclear weapons : Khamenei

Updated on : Saturday, February 20, 2010

TEHRAN: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is reiterating a previous claim that Islam is "opposed to nuclear weapons," insisting that Tehran is not trying to build them. Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is also calling a leaked report that Tehran is working to build a nuclear warhead "baseless."

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei christened a new, Iranian-built warship, as a military band honored him on the ship's deck. Addressing a crowd of military commanders after the ceremony, he told them "Islam is opposed to nuclear weapons and that Tehran is not working to build them."

Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna indicated earlier Friday that Tehran had informed the new IAEA director Yukiya Amano that it had started enriching 20 percent grade uranium for its medical research reactor in Tehran.

"Even if the nuclear agency would continue for ten more years, the result would be the same," he said. "If a new director general comes, again, [he] will report the same, because we are absolutely sure and we have assured the international community that all are activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes."

Ambassador Soltaniyah added that a leaked report claiming Tehran was trying to build a nuclear warhead is "baseless," because the documents have "no confidential or secret stamps." The West, he argued, is trying to distort the nature of Iran's nuclear program for political purposes.

"Our advice is, in fact, to stop [these] political challenges and debates in the IAEA. Let the IAEA begin new director general to focus on their purely technical and professional work," he said.

Iran's nuke facilities can be bombed: Petraeus

Updated on : Sunday, January 10, 2010

WASHINGTON: A top US military commander responsible for the Middle East and the Gulf region said the United States has developed contingency plans to deal with Iran's nuclear facilities, insisting that they "can be bombed."

"Well, they certainly can be bombed," General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, told an American television as he commented on suggestions that Iranian nuclear facilities were heavily fortified.

"The level of effect would vary with who it is that carries it out, what ordnance they have, and what capability they can bring to bear," he added.

The network plans to air the interview later Sunday, but has released some excerpts.

Petraeus did not elaborate on the plans, but he said the military has considered the impacts of any action taken there.

"It would be almost literally irresponsible if Centcom were not to have been thinking about the various 'what ifs' and to make plans for a whole variety of different contingencies," Petraeus said.

Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the United States and other Western nations fear Tehran wants to acquire nuclear weapons.

Iran leader endorses Ahmadinejad

Updated on : Monday, August 03, 2009

TEHRAN: Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday formally endorsed hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president for a new four-year term amid intense political turmoil in the Islamic republic.

"Iranian people have voted in favour of a fight against arrogance, to confront destitution and spread justice," a local television quoted Khamenei as saying after confirming Ahmadinejad in office.

Among those who did not attend were Ahmadinejad's defeated rivals Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, along with powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, it said. However, Mohsen Rezai, the former head of the elite Revolutionary Guards who was Ahmadinejad's only conservative rival in the June 12 vote, was at the ceremony.

Mousavi hits back at Khamenei’s speech

Sunday, June 21, 2009

TEHRAN: Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi hit back on Saturday at a speech by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in which the supreme leader ruled out any fraud in last week's election. In a statement posted on his newspaper website, Mousavi said his demand for the annulment of the election was an undeniable right and vowed to side with the Iranian people in defending their rights. "If this huge volume of cheating and changing the votes... which has hurt people's trust is presented as the very evidence of the lack of cheating, then it will butcher the republican aspect of the system and the idea that Islam is incompatible with a republic will be proven," Mousavi said. The strong criticism headlined "the fifth statement of Mir Hossein Mousavi to the Iranian people: don't allow lies and cheaters to steal the flag of defending the Islamic system from you" was briefly pulled from the website but later reposted. In his first public appearance since the disputed election, Khamenei on Friday ruled out any fraud in the June 12 vote and stressed there could be no doubting the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad. "The people have chosen whom they wanted," Khamenei said in a sermon at the main weekly Muslim prayers." "The legal mechanisms in our country do not allow cheating. How can one cheat with a margin of 11 million votes?" the supreme leader asked. Mousavi insisted that the people's votes be protected, warning of dire consequences if they were not. "If the people's trust is not matched by protecting their votes or if they are not able to defend their rights in a civil peaceful reaction, there will be dangerous ways ahead," Mousavi said in the statement. He said any repercussions would be "on those who cannot tolerate peaceful behaviour." Mousavi, who was Ahmadinejad's main challenger for the presidency, said he "strongly" believed the official results of the election should be cancelled. He said his demand "should be examined by a reliable committee. The possibility that it can yield a good result must not be dismissed prematurely," he added.