Iranian president claims US is the nuclear threat

AFP | September 16 2006

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Friday the United States was the real nuclear threat and reiterated his insistence Tehran's nuclear atomic program had peaceful aims.

"Why should people live under the nuclear threat of the United States?" he asked at a summit of the 118-strong Non-Aligned Movement in Havana.

"What is the UN Security Council waiting for to react to those threats?"

He urged his counterparts to help "counter attempts to prevent Iran from developing its peaceful nuclear activity."

The United States is pushing for sanctions against Iran to force Tehran to stop producing enriched uranium, which can be used both for atomic energy and nuclear weapons.

Ahmedinejad said Iran had clearly demonstrated US accusations were unfounded and insisted that the United States, "knows our country has fully collaborated with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which declared we were not in violation of its norms."

He also called for a thorough reform of the Security Council and suggested the United States and Britain had no place on the Council.

"The United States, with their arrogance and power, and Britain, how can those countries be represented and have a veto right?" he asked in his address to the more than 55 heads of state and government gathered for two days of talks in Havana.

He claimed Washington used the Council "as a basis for imposing its policies."

"The Security Council with the presence of the superpowers, the United States and Britain, has never promoted security in the world," he said.

He said that for decades the Council had failed to protect the rights of the Palestinian people, and had done nothing for 30 days to end the recent Israeli "aggression" on Lebanon.