Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday dismissed new sanctions aimed at punishing his country for failing to halt part of its nuclear program, calling the latest UN resolution “a worthless paper.”
During a visit to Shanghai, Ahmadinejad also accused the US of hypocrisy for leading the drive to censure Iran and accused US President Barack Obama of pursuing the same “bullying” tactics of his predecessor, former US president George W. Bush.
The resolution adopted by the UN Security Council on Wednesday “is a piece of paper. A worthless paper,” Ahmadinejad told reporters at a news conference while visiting the World Expo in Shanghai.
Despite hopes by China that the sanctions would give a boost to renewed negotiations, he said that could only happen in a “friendly atmosphere.”
“Having dialogue under a hostile atmosphere has no meaning,” Ahmadinejad said.
His visit comes two days after host China yielded to international pressure to back a fourth round of nuclear sanctions targeting Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, ballistic missiles and nuclear-related investments in a bid to compel Tehran to cooperate with international inspectors.
Ahmadinejad was not scheduled to meet Chinese leaders while in China.
Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction and denied the Holocaust, also lashed out at the West for supporting the Jewish state.
“They are not against nuclear bombs because in the Middle East they have equipped the Zionist regime with nuclear weapons and tolerate all the abuses committed by the Zionist regime,” he said.
The new sanctions seek to punish Iran for rejecting proposals to halt uranium enrichment and take its nuclear fuel from abroad. The West and its allies fear Iran is developing nuclear weapons, though Iran says it is seeking nuclear power only for peaceful energy and medical research purposes.
As a permanent member of the Security Council and key Iranian ally, China could have exercised its veto power to block the sanctions, but it reversed its earlier opposition out of frustration with Tehran’s intransigence and a desire to avoid becoming isolated over the issue, analysts said.
Asked about China’s support for sanctions, Ahmadinejad deflected blame onto Washington.
“We have very good relations with China and we have no reason to weaken our relations with China. I said the problem is the United States,” he said, adding that unnamed countries on the Security Council had been subject to “pressure and intimidation.”
In related news, a controversial deal to supply Iran with S-300 air defense missiles was barred by UN sanctions leveled against Tehran over its nuclear program last week, a Kremlin source told reporters yesterday.
Russian authorities have made conflicting statements about how the sanctions approved in the UN Security Council on Wednesday would affect the contract, which the US and Israel have urged Moscow not to fulfill.
In Moscow, a key lawmaker yesterday said that Russia must halt a controversial deal to supply Iran with air defense missiles.
“In the circumstances, I am opposed to fulfilling this contract,” Konstantin Kosachev, the influential chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said on his Internet blog.
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