Iranian president scorns UN sanctions

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scorned the UN Security Council’s imposing sanctions on Iran, telling a crowd today that Iran had humiliated the United States in the past and would do so again.

Speaking in the south-western provincial capital of Ahvaz, Ahmadinejad said the Security Council’s resolution of December 23 was invalid and had left the world body’s reputation in tatters.

The council voted unanimously to bar all countries from selling materials and technology to Iran that could contribute to its nuclear and missile programmes.

It also froze the assets of 10 Iranian companies and 12 individuals related to those programmes.

“Let the world know that from the Iranian nation’s point of view, this resolution has no validity,” Ahmadinejad said.

He said the United States was the main power behind the resolution, and warned Washington: “I want you to know that the Iranian nation has humiliated you many times, and it will humiliate you in future.”

The United States has led the drive to stop Iran from enriching uranium – a process that produces the material for either nuclear reactors or bombs.

Iran denies that it seeks to build atomic weapons, saying its nuclear programme is limited to the generation of electricity.

Ahmadinejad said the sanctions were not important, but were part of a campaign of psychological warfare against Iran that was designed to provoke dissent within the country.

“You are nobody,” he told the Western powers. Recalling the West’s support for Iraq, then ruled by Saddam Hussein, during its eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s, he said: “If all the powers that supported Saddam in his war against Iran were to regroup and confront Iran again, Iranians would deliver a historic slap in their face.”

Ahmadinejad said Iran had done everything it could to prove that its nuclear programme was peaceful, but the West, in the name of opposing nuclear weapons, was trying to thwart Iran’s development.

“We have tried all legal, wise and logical ways to convince these corrupt and selfish powers,” he said of the West.