TEHRAN, 4 June 2007 — Iran’s president said yesterday the Lebanese and the Palestinians had pressed a “countdown button” to bring an end to Israel.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who triggered outrage in the West two years ago when he said Israel should be “wiped off the map”, has often referred to the destruction of the Jewish state but says Iran is not a threat.
“With God’s help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech.
Ahmadinejad was speaking ahead of today’s anniversary of the death in 1989 of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, whose words Ahmadinejad echoed when he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map”.
A Foreign Ministry official said yesterday a third UN sanctions resolution and efforts by the United States to isolate Iran will not deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear program.
The United Nations has slapped two rounds of sanctions on Iran since December and Washington has threatened more UN steps unless Tehran heeds a demand to halt uranium enrichment, the part of the atomic program that most worries the West.
“The issuing and imposing of resolutions will not change our mind from the path we have chosen and on the continuation of our activities,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a weekly news conference.
‘US-Iranians Have Confessed’
Iran said yesterday that several US-Iranians detained on accusations linked to spying “have confessed” as it warned the United States not to interfere in their cases.
“Regarding the espionage of some Iranians, we have had good results. They have confessed to many issues,” the centrist Ham Mihan newspaper quoted the Tehran deputy prosecutor for security affairs, Hassan Hadad, as saying.
