US delegation walks out on Ahmadinejad UNGA speech

Iranian leader attacks US, West for causing current global crisis; says Washington used "mysterious" Sept. 11 attack as pretext to control Middle East and its oil; questions why bin Laden wasn't given trial.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Ahmadinejad 311 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Ahmadinejad 311
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The US delegation to the United Nations General Assembly walked out on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's address to the world body in New York on Thursday, in a repeat of events during his speech at last year's event. Diplomats from additional nations followed the US delegation out of the building.
Ahmadinejad attacked world powers for causing the current global crisis by perpetrating  slavery, colonialism, triggering both world wars and using the "mysterious" events of September 11 as a pretext to take over the Middle East and its oil resources.
RELATED:Ahmadinejad: 'Palestine will one day be liberated'
Ahmadinejad criticized the US for killing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and throwing his body into the sea. He suggested that bin Laden was not arrested and put on trial because the US had something to hide.
He slammed the West for supporting Zionism as a "sacred ideology" while insulting other "divine religions."
"By using their imperialistic media network which is under the influence of colonialism they threaten anyone who questions the Holocaust and the September 11 event with sanctions and military actions," he said.
"The majority of nations have no role in the creation of the current global crisis and they themselves are the victims," Ahmadinejad stated.
"Is it acceptable that they call themselves the sole defenders of freedom and human rights as they attack and occupy other countries?" he asked in apparent reference to the US.
Ahmadinejad stated that the US should pay reparations to the vicitms of their oppression as some European countries pay reparations to the "Zionists six decades after the Holocaust."
The Iranian president received a light smattering of applause from the assembly at the conclusion of his speech.