NEW YORK – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the UN nuclear watchdog of being in the pocket of the United States and illegally releasing the names of three nuclear scientists who were then assassinated by alleged Israeli-trained killers.
In a wide-ranging interview Thursday evening with The Associated Press, he also claimed that explosive material — and not airliners alone — brought down the World Trade Center, attacked US policies from Libya to Afghanistan, and said when his second and final term ends in two years “new elections will be held and someone else will occupy this office.”
The interview took place hours after Ahmadinejad lashed out at America so fiercely in his speech to the UN General Assembly that diplomats from more than 30 countries, led by those from the United States, walked out.
Yet, after calling the US a greedy, arrogant power too ready to use military force, Ahmadinejad told the AP that it isn’t too late for President Barack Obama to carry out his election pledge to improve ties with Iran after three decades of enmity.
“I don’t believe that this is a chance that has been completely lost,” he said.
Ahmadinejad said he never received a reply to a personal letter he sent Obama, or to an announced offer to meet him during the General Assembly to open a dialogue, including on the nuclear issue.
“He could have chosen not to continue the wrong path chosen by his predecessor — and he can still do so,” Ahmadinejad said. “Animosity with Iran will not yield any results, will not give them any benefit.”
Iran has been subjected to four rounds of UN sanctions for refusing to suspend its uranium enrichment program that can make nuclear fuel or fissile material for a nuclear warhead. The US and its Western allies believe Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons and for the first time the International Atomic Energy Agency said earlier this month it is “increasingly concerned” about “extensive and comprehensive” intelligence suggesting Iran is continuing its secret nuclear weapons work.
Ahmadinejad insisted Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and repeated an offer to meet with world powers to discuss nuclear issues. But he also warned that “the nuclear issue has been manipulated and turned into a political issue.”
The Iranian leader claimed the IAEA is “succumbing to pressures of the United States of America — and they speak the word of the United States of America.” He also accused the nuclear agency of acting “illegally and unethically” by releasing the names of Iranian nuclear scientists, saying “this is a clear crime.”
Those arrested for assassinating three of those scientists — whom he didn’t identify — “confessed to the fact that they were trained in the occupied lands by the Zionists, and the proof and the documentation is now sitting before a judge.”
Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York comes at a time of rising concern about the global economy, the Palestinian bid for UN membership and international recognition as an independent state, and uprisings in the Middle East following the Arab Spring protests that toppled longtime authoritarian rulers in Tunisia and Egypt.
