A defiant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Saturday to inaugurate “important nuclear projects” within days and lashed out at Israel, saying the “story” of the Holocaust underpinning its existence had been “smashed”.
In a speech marking the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Ahmadinejad said his nation will “never yield” to Western sanctions and threats of military action from Israel and the United States. A crowd of an estimated 30,000 people in Tehran’s main Azadi (Freedom) Square cheered Ahmadinejad’s words despite the winter weather. Many, including exuberant high school students, held aloft placards declaring “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”. In pointed messages aimed at those two arch-foes, Iranian officials planted a full-scale model of a US spy drone captured in December at an entrance to the square, and hosted on the stage the Hamas prime minister of Gaza. Hamas “will never recognise Israel,” Gaza leader Ismail Haniya told the crowd just before Ahmadinejad spoke. His remarks were likely to complicate efforts to form with rival party Fatah a Palestinian unity government in the face of strong opposition from the Jewish state, which views Hamas as a terrorist organisation armed by Iran.
Ahmadinejad gave no details about the “important nuclear projects” about to be made public. However, the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has already said Iran is enriching uranium to 20 percent — a level significantly closer to military-grade 90 percent purity — at a mountain bunker near the Shiite shrine city of Qom. And Iranian officials have said that they will be inserting their first domestically made 20-percent enriched fuel plate into a Tehran research reactor by March.
Israel, voicing concerns that Iran could shield its nuclear programme from attack by the end of this year, has made comments suggesting it could imminently launch air strikes against its long-time enemy. The United States has also not ruled out military action. But Ahmadinejad rejected the pressure, saying that, “if the language of bullying and insult is used, the Iranian nation will never yield.” He added: “The only path is to adhere to justice and the respect of Iran’s (nuclear) rights and to return to the negotiating table.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, in comments carried by media on Saturday, said his country’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, had written a reply to Ashton that “either has been sent or is on the verge of being sent.” Ahmadinejad used his speech to again question the veracity of the Jewish Holocaust, which he has in the past dismissed as a “myth”.
He claimed the United States and the West had created “a story called the Holocaust” to create the Israeli state as part of a plan “to dominate the world”. But, he said, “the Iranian nation with courage and wisdom smashed this idol to free the people of the West (of its hold).” He urged Western nations to stop supporting Israel.
“Why do you link your fate with this sham regime? Let Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Palestine become free,” he said. “Democracy doesn’t come out of the barrel of a gun.”
