WORLD
Iran's president says Bush 'most hated'
(AP)
Updated: 2006-12-22 08:53
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called President Bush
"the most hated person" in the world on Thursday, keeping up his tirades
against the West despite elections that showed Iranians want him to focus
on the country's domestic problems.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, talks with the Pakistani
Foreign Minister, Khursheed Kasuri, during their meeting in the city of
Kermanshah 315 miles (525 kilometers) southwest of the capital Tehran,
Iran, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006. Pictures of Iran's late revolutionary
founder Ayatollah Khomeini, top right, and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, hang on the wall. [AP]
In final results announced Thursday from local elections last week,
moderate conservatives opposed to Ahmadinejad won a majority of seats.
They were followed by reformists, making a comeback after being driven
out of local councils, parliament and the presidency over the past five
years.
In the capital Tehran, where Ahmadinejad was mayor before becoming
president 16 months ago, his allies grabbed only three of the 15 council
seats, while moderate conservatives won seven. Reformists won four, and
an independent one. Though the Dec. 15 elections were local, they were
the first time the public has weighed in on Ahmadinejad's stormy
presidency.
But Ahmadinejad appeared unbowed. He toured cities in western Iran,
telling the crowds that Iran will not be intimidated by Western demands
to dismantle its nuclear program, and scolding Bush.
"Oh, the respectful gentleman, get out of the glassy palace and know that
you are the most hated person in the eyes of the world's nations and you
can't harm the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad said, according to the
official Iranian Republic News Agency.
He said Iran would continue uranium enrichment even under threat of U.N.
sanctions. "A nation that has resisted until today will resist until the
last step and will defend its rights," he said.
The United States and its allies believe Iran is trying to develop
nuclear weapons. Iran denies the allegation, saying its nuclear goal is
only to generate electricity.
Ahmadinejad did not comment on the election results. But his hard-line
foreign policy, in the absence of a strong domestic agenda or economic
program, is believed to have divided the conservative base that voted him
into the presidency last year.
The president has sharply escalated Iran's standoff with the United
States and its allies over several issues. Besides uranium enrichment, he
has sparked international outrage for his calls to eliminate Israel and
for casting doubt on the Nazi Holocaust.
Election results outside Tehran also showed a heavy defeat for
Ahmadinejad supporters. None of his candidates won seats on the councils
in the cities of Shiraz, Bandar Abbas, Sari, Zanjan, Rasht, Ilam,
Sanandaj and Kerman, and many councils in other cities were divided like
Tehran's.
Similar anti-Ahmadinejad sentiment appeared in final results of a
parallel election for the Assembly of Experts, the body of 86 senior
clerics that monitors Iran's supreme Islamic leader and chooses his
successor.
A big boost for moderates within the ruling Islamic establishment was
visible in the large number of votes for former President Hashemi
Rafsanjani, who lost to Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election
runoff.
Rafsanjani, who supports dialogue with the United States, got the most
votes of any candidate from Tehran to win re-election to the assembly.
Opposition candidates demanded that Ahmadinejad pay more attention to
unemployment, now estimated at 11 percent, and other economic problems.
He has failed to carry through on several domestic campaign promises,
including a pledge to send a share of the country's oil revenues to every
family and to implement an anti-poverty program.
The moderate daily newspaper Etemad-e-Melli, or National Confidence,
urged Ahmadinejad to change his policies if he has any respect for the
vote.
"The result of the elections, if there is any ear to listen or any eye to
see, demands reconsideration in policies," the paper said in an editorial
Thursday.
Conservative lawmaker Emad Afroogh also called on Ahmadinejad to learn a
lesson from the vote. "The people's vote means they don't like
Ahmadinejad's populist methods," Afroogh told The Associated Press.
Reformist Saeed Shariati also said the results of the election were a
"big no" to Ahmadinejad and his allies, who he accused of harming Iran's
interests with their hard line.
"We consider this government's policy to be against Iran's national
interests and security. It is simply acting against Iran's interests,"
said Shariati, a leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Iran's
largest reformist party. His party seeks democratic changes within the
ruling Islamic establishment and supports relations with the United
States.
Top World News
� Sudan OKs UN peacekeepers in Darfur
� One woman, two wombs, three babies
� French PM questioned for over 17 hours
� US commanders wary of Iraq troop plan
� Turkmen president dies of heart attack
Today's Top News
� Official vows tougher land-use controls
� N.Korea nuclear talks end without deal
� Threshold lowered for rural lenders
� US Marines charged in 24 Iraqi killings
� No sign of breakthrough at nuke talks
Most Commented/Read Stories in 48 Hours
Learn Chinese, Learning Mandarin, Learning Materials, Mandarin audio lessons, Chinese writing lessons, Chinese vocabulary lists, About chinese characters, News in Chinese, Go to China, Travel to China, Study in China, Teach in China, Dictionaries, Learn Chinese Painting, Your name in Chinese, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese songs, Chinese proverbs, Chinese poetry, Chinese tattoo, Beijing 2008 Olympics, Mandarin Phrasebook, Chinese editor, Pinyin editor, China Travel, Travel to Beijing, Travel to Tibet
No comments:
Post a Comment