Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday said sanctions have no effect on Iran and added that anybody who wants to threaten Iranians’ rights will be confronted proportionally, the Iranian-based IRNA news agency reported.
According to the report, Ahmadinejad made the comments in an interview with a Mexican TV network after being asked about U.S. officials’ threats against Iran.
He said Iran’s nuclear issue has turned into a political one, adding that the U.S. and its allies are trying to prevent Iranian progress because they intend to dominate Middle East completely and they consider Iran an obstacle in its way.
Ahmadinejad rejected the possibility that the U.S. would launch a military attack against Iran, saying, “We believe there are wise people in the U.S. who prevent others to do crazy actions, furthermore, Iranians have learned how to live in hard situations.”
He added that history has shown that any foreign power that wanted to invade Iran failed and regretted it.
Never missing a chance to threaten Israel, Ahmadinejad said that the downfall of the “Zionist regime” does not need any atomic bomb and even a war because, as he said, the regime is based on cruelty and massacre so it will collapse automatically.
He once again denied that the Holocaust existed, according to the report, arguing that if the Holocaust is a historical reality, research about it would not be prohibited and the researchers would not be imprisoned.
Ahmadinejad said that the Islamic Republic of Iran has never recognized the “illegitimate Zionist regime” and said the UN has also declared that Israel is an occupier and has issued several resolutions against it.
On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned Iran for its nuclear program as well as its latest provocations regarding the Strait of Hormuz.
“We’re making it clear to Iran that its pursuit of nuclear weapons and its needless provocations, such as its threat regarding the Straits of Hormuz, place it on a dangerous path,” Clinton told reporters following a meeting with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.
Last week, Iran scoffed sanctions by Western countries, saying there is a high demand for Iran’s crude oil supplies and Tehran has no problem maintaining exports.
Iranian Ambassador to South Korea, Ahmad Masoumifar, shrugged off Iran’s shrinking pools of customers, saying “we (Iran) are producing about 80 million barrels [of oil] and there is demand for about 90 million.”
The European Union is set to meet on Monday to consider joining the effort to strengthen the embargo against Iran in hopes of convincing its government to scale back, if not entirely halt its nuclear development programs.
Meanwhile, as the tension regarding Iran increases and speculations continue that Israel will launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, on Sunday it was reported that Israeli officials told visiting USS Chief Joint of Staffs Martin Dempsey that it would give President Barack Obama no more than 12 hours notice if and when it attacks Iran.
According to a report in The London Times, the Netanyahu government also said it will not coordinate with the United States an attack on the Islamic Republic.
