A defiant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday Iran was ready for more sanctions and would not bow to pressure in meeting any deadline set by world powers over its nuclear program.
“No one can impose sanctions on Iran anymore. We welcome sanctions. We have given our proposed package,” Ahmadinejad said, referring to a package of proposals that would form the basis of fresh talks with world powers.
The president was speaking to reporters after parliament strongly backed 18 of the 21 members of his proposed new Cabinet.
PHOTO: AFP
An aide and Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, said the president would later this month attend the UN General Assembly meeting in New York “to encourage Iranian views in managing the world.”
Iran’s reaction comes as the US and five other world powers — Britain, China, Russia, France and Germany — pressed the Islamic republic on Wednesday to accept an offer of face-to-face nuclear talks at a key UN meeting late this month.
Senior diplomats from the six world powers, known as P5+1, and the EU, met in Frankfurt, Germany, on Wednesday and urged Iran to accept their offer of direct talks.
Earlier, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said Tehran would not bow to “threat and pressure” in meeting any deadline set by world powers.
“We are a nation which believes in dialogue and interaction, but if they [the six world powers] want to set up a deadline using threat and pressure, it is not acceptable,” IRNA news agency yesterday quoted Ghashghavi as saying.
He said Iran’s nuclear activities must be dealt with by the International Atomic Energy Agency and not the UN Security Council.
A day ahead of the gathering in Germany, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, was quoted as saying that Tehran had updated its own package of proposals and was ready for fresh talks with world powers.
But the White House and EU said they had no official notification from Iran on new proposals.
Ghashghavi dismissed the threat of further sanctions if Iran failed to talk with global powers.
“We have said this many times, that sanctions [are] a rusty sword which has no effect. There is no reason for retreat, but we are committed to our international obligations,” he said.
US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said on Wednesday that world powers felt “a negotiated solution is still open to Iran.”
“They expected Iran ... to respond to the offer of talks [issued by the six] in April by agreeing to meet before the UN General Assembly meeting,” Kelly told reporters.
The General Assembly meets in New York the week of Sept. 21.
Meanwhile, parliament approved most of Ahmadinejad’s choices for key Cabinet posts, including endorsing the defense minister nominee, who is wanted by Argentina for a deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center.
The broad mandate from lawmakers was a boost for the embattled president and considered a vote of confidence for his crackdowns on political opponents and tough stance against Western pressure for talks on the nation’s nuclear program.
Lawmakers rejected three nominees: the energy minister and two women proposed for the welfare and social security ministries.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS