Sep 21, 2006 12:38 pm US/Eastern
Ahmadinejad: Iran Doesn't Need The Bomb
Ahmadinejad Insists Again That Tehran's Nuclear Program Is Peaceful
UNITED NATIONS (CBS News) ―
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country has not hidden anything. (File)
Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted Thursday that Tehran's nuclear program is peaceful and said he is "at a loss" about what more he can do to provide guarantees.
Ahmadinejad said his country has not hidden anything and was working within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty.
"The bottom line is we do not need a bomb," he said at a news conference on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
With world leaders gathered at the United Nations, the United States had hoped to move decisively this week toward political and economic sanctions against Iran after it missed an Aug. 31 deadline from the U.N. Security Council to halt uranium enrichment.
On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad told the U.N. General Assembly that Iran's nuclear activities are "transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eye" of United Nations inspectors.
Ahmadinejad accused some permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — an apparent reference to the United States — of using the powerful U.N. body as a tool of "threat and coercion." He reiterated his nation's commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
"All our nuclear activities are transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eyes" of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Ahmadinejad said.
His speech was sharply critical of the United States and Britain, and focused in large part on what he said was their abuse of the Security Council, on which they are both permanent members with veto power.
"If they have differences with a nation or state, they drag it to the Security Council and as claimants, arrogate to themselves simultaneously the roes of prosecutor, judge and executioner," Ahmadinejad said. "Is this a just order?"
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said President Bush did not watch Ahmadinejad's speech and would not engage in point-by-point rebuttal of it.
The U.S. and Britain played central roles in helping craft a U.N. Security Council resolution passed in July that gave Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend uranium enrichment and asked the IAEA to report on Tehran's compliance, dangling the threat of sanctions if Iran refused. Tehran made clear even before the deadline expired that it had no intention of suspending uranium enrichment.
"Clearly, Ahmadinejad's speech was an attempt to rally the developing world, not mentioning Iran's role in terror and, on the contrary, scolding the U.S and the U.K, for oppression in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Iran itself," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk from the U.N. on Tuesday evening.
"Although Ahmadinejad's attacks on the world powers may ring true with the developing world and it may buy Iran some more time with negotiations, the Security Council is likely to continue to press for sanctions if Iran does not return to a suspension of its nuclear programs."
The speech came a few hours after President Bush used his U.N. platform to try to quell anti-Americanism in the Middle East by assuring Muslims that he is not waging war against Islam, regardless of what "propaganda and conspiracy theories" they hear.
Mr. Bush also pressed Iran to return at once to international talks on its nuclear program and threatened consequences if the Iranians do not.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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