Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinjed said Wednesday
he had expected his US counterpart, Barack Obama, would have attended
the UN racism conference in Geneva in order to prove his willingness
to change American policy.
'The new US president, who claims to want change, should have come
to Geneva and voiced his opposition to any form of racism,'
Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Varamin, south-east of the capital
Tehran.
US President Obama said Tuesday Ahmadinejad's remarks against
Israel at the UN racism conference were 'appalling and
objectionable,' and damaging to the prospects of better relations
with the United States.
'Instead of condemning my speech, he should have come and showed
in practice that the US policies have changed, at least regarding
racism,' Ahmadinejad added in the speech which was broadcast live on
Khabar news network.
During a meeting Tuesday with Jordanian King Abdullah, Obama
responded to Ahmadinejad's comments after the Iranian president
called Israel a 'racist regime' created 'under the pretext of Jewish
suffering.'
'Sadly, the rhetoric is not new,' Obama said. 'This is the kind of
rhetoric that we've come to expect from President Ahmadinejad.'
Ahmadinejad rejected Obama's critics and referred to the
caricatures of Moslem prophet Mohammed which Iran and the Islamic
world condemned as an insult to over one billion Moslems.
'When we at that time protested against the caricatures of our
prophet, they (the West) said you should be tolerant in the name of
freedom of expression,' the Iranian president said.
'But the same people who claim to defend freedom of expression do
not even tolerate a twenty-minute speech (at the UN conference),' he
added.
Ahmadinejad claimed that Israel and the West planned to prevent
his speech at the UN conference by sending 'clowns' as protestors and
later sending out their delegates from the hall.
'But such methods can neither stop the truth being said nor harm
Iran,' the Iranian president said.
Despite the quarrel at the UN conference, Iran and the US have
agreed to resume talks over the controversial Iranian nuclear
programme, together with the other four United Nations Security
Council member states and Germany.
USA
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