Ahmadinejad cites need for ‘new world order’

Speaking on the sidelines of the Rio+20 summit in Brazil, Iranian president defends his nation’s right to nuclear energy

By AP and ToI Staff 22 June 2012, 7:44 am

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (photo credit: CC-BY-Daniella Zalcman, Wikimedia Commons)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Iran’s president defended his nation’s right to develop nuclear energy on Thursday during a visit to Brazil.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s press conference came two days after nuclear talks with world powers in Moscow ended without progress. He spoke to journalists on the sidelines of the UN conference on sustainable development being held this week in Rio de Janeiro.

In order to tackle the social and economic inequalities and the injustice currently undermining human dignity world-wide, there is a great need for a “new world order,” he said through a Portuguese-speaking translator.

“This order would be based on compassion and justice, and in it, all humanity would be respected,” he said, pointing out that in the world today, a small minority has the power to make decisions, without consideration for the needs of the majority.

A sign of the injustice in the current world order, he said, is the nuclear proliferation question.

“The countries that have nuclear arms today, and that at certain moments used those arms, today through threats are telling other countries they cannot have these weapons,” he said. “We believe that nuclear energy, along with other forms of energy, should be accessible to all nations and is the right of all nations. But nowadays, it is monopolized by a few.”

Ahmadinejad also met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was in attendance at the Rio+20 summit. The Iranian leader told Ban that all of his nation’s nuclear activities “have so far been based on [international] regulations and under the surveillance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” reported the Islamic Republic’s semi-official FARS News Agency.

Ahmadinejad relayed to the UN chief that Iran has never sought to build nuclear weapons and had always called for cordial relations among nations.

“Arrogant and hegemonic powers should stop their hostility against the Iranian people and other justice-seeking and freedom-seeking nations,” he added, according to the report.

In the talks between Tehran and six world powers that ended Tuesday, the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany argued that Iran should stop enriching uranium to the point where it is steps away from being usable in nuclear warheads. Iranian leaders during the talks said the country is not pursuing nuclear weapons, and that the uranium is only meant for medical uses and to make reactor fuel.