NEW YORK – Stating that Iran would never recognize the “Zionist regime,”
Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke his mind freely on Monday and
Tuesday while
in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meetings, commenting
on
capitalism, the Holocaust and a potential war that “knows no limits” to
various
audiences.
Ahmadinejad is to address the General Assembly on Thursday,
but spoke to other audiences in the days leading up to his
speech.
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Ahmadinejad: Sanctions against Iran 'meaningless'Peres: Ahmadinejad ‘a living declaration against the UN'Speaking before a group of Muslim figures in New York on Monday
night, Ahmadinejad said “the Iranian nation will never recognize the Zionist
regime,” Iran’s Fars News Agency reported on Tuesday.
“Palestinians can
cut the hands of the aggressor and put an end to the Zionist regime’s presence
in the region,” he reportedly said.
Ahmadinejad reiterated Iran’s support
for the Palestinians, as well as the Lebanese, in his remarks. The Iranian
president’s remarks were reportedly met by applause from his audience.
Ahmadinejad criticizes Western media's double standard In
the same talk, the Iranian leader criticized Western media as having a double
standard in reporting on the case of an American woman facing the death penalty,
according to Iranian state-run reporting service IRNA.
Ahmadinejad
accused the West of launching a “heavy propaganda” campaign against the
case of
an Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery, but of
failing to
react with outrage over the imminent execution of Teresa Lewis in
Virginia, IRNA
reported.
Ahmadinejad noted that “millions of Internet pages” have been
devoted to Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, whose stoning sentence was
suspended in
July, with her case put under review.
“Meanwhile, nobody objects to the
case of an American woman who is going to be executed,” he was quoted as
saying.
“Today Western media are propaganda agents who continuously speak
about democracy and human rights, though their slogans are sheer lies,”
he
added.
Iran says it has put the stoning on hold for now, but also has
indicated Ashtiani could be hanged for her conviction of playing a role
in her
husband’s 2005 murder.
At the UN on Tuesday, in a speech on the second
day of the UN anti-poverty summit, Ahmadinejad said capitalism is facing
defeat
and called for an overhaul of the “undemocratic and unjust” global
decisionmaking bodies.
The Iranian leader called on world leaders,
thinkers and global reformers “to spare no effort” to make practical
plans for a
new world order. To spotlight this effort, Ahmadinejad proposed Tuesday
that the
United Nations name the current decade the Decade for Joint Global
Governance.
On Tuesday morning Ahmadinejad candidly downplayed the
Holocaust at a breakfast meeting for journalists attended by David
Bradley, the
proprietor of the magazine
The Atlantic, and James Bennet, its
editor.
According to a blog recounting by
Atlantic
writer Jeffrey
Goldberg, James asked Ahmadinejad to respond to Fidel Castro’s recent
request
“to lay off the Holocaust denial, and to respect the history of Jewish
suffering.”
According to the blog, Ahmadinejad evaded the question,
saying “Mr. Fidel Castro is a recognized figure; he can have his views,
we do
not fight over views.”
“Ahmadinejad also said that an unnamed Cuban
official informed Iran that ‘Mr. Castro said nothing in the recent
interview
except to support Iran.’ This is not true, of course,” Goldberg
noted.
Ahmadinejad then reportedly went on to question the historical
truth of the Holocaust.
“‘The question is, why don’t we allow this
subject to be examined further... It is incorrect to force only one view
on the
rest of the world,’” Goldberg recounts the Iranian president as saying,
adding
that Ahmadinejad then asked, “How come, when it comes to the subject of
the
Holocaust, there is so much sensitivity?”
Ahmadinejad reiterated his
point made
in a Sunday interview with Christiane Amanpour, saying that he is not an
anti-Semite, but merely opposed to Zionism, which is “based on racist
thoughts
and ideas.”
According to Bennett, Goldberg recounted, when journalist Joe
Scarborough asked Ahmadinejad if he would consider it an act of war if
the US
were to allow Israeli warplanes to overfly Iraq on their way to bomb
Iranian
nuclear facilities, Ahmadinejad responded, “Do you think anyone will
attack Iran
to begin with? I really don’t think so. The Zionist regime is a very
small
entity on the map, even to the point that it doesn’t really factor into
our
equation.”
Ahmadinejad then said, according to Goldberg, “The United
States has never entered a serious war, and has never been
victorious.”
“And, in what [Bennett] reports was his most ominous
statement, Ahmadinejad said, ‘The United States doesn’t understand what
war
looks like.
When a war starts, it knows no limits,’” Goldberg’s blog
entry concluded.
Barak says Iran could reach nuclear capabilities within a
year-and-half
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Defense
Minister Ehud Barak said that “Iran could reach nuclear capabilities
within a
year-and-half or two years if they decide to break all the rules, but it
might
take a little longer.”
Barak, interviewed by Fox following his meetings
with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, underscored that the Iranian
threat
is “the highest priority at the moment, not just for Israel, but even
for this
[Obama] administration. It will be part of the way that history will
judge this
administration.”
The US has been concerned about the nuclear program in
Iran. Teheran is currently under four sets of Security Council sanctions
for
continuing its uranium enrichment and ignoring other UN demands meant to
ease
global concerns that Iran is seeking to make atomic weapons.
When asked
about the usefulness of sanctions, Barak responded, “I don’t believe
that
sanctions alone could work... We believe that no option should be
removed from
the table.”
Turkish President Abdullah Gul will meet with Ahmadinejad in
New York sometime this week. Gul plans to call for a Middle East totally
free of
nuclear weapons when he addresses the General Assembly later this week,
he told
The Associated Press in an interview on Monday.
Turkey, a member of the
NATO alliance, has opposed sanctions against Iran. Since 2002, Turkey
has been
governed by an Islamic-rooted party that has tried to improve relations
with
Iran.
Gul said “of course, we cannot accuse Iran” of pursuing nuclear
weapons without evidence.
“We want Iran to be transparent” with
International Atomic Energy Agency officials, Gul told The Associated
Press. “We
in Turkey would like to see a peaceful, a diplomatic solution to this
problem.”