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Ayat. Khatami dismisses US' anti-Iran claims

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, June 2, IRNA
Iran-Prayers-Khatami
Substitute Friday prayers leader of Tehran Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami on Friday ruled out the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's anti-Iran claims, calling them "repetitive and worn-out."
"It seems that the US has been suffering a sort of confusion in speaking about Iran and it does not know how to deal with the great Iranian nation," said Khatami while delivering his second sermon to large groups of Tehrani Friday prayers worshippers.

Khatami brushed off Rice's claim that Iran's access to nuclear warfare would endanger world security.

"Rice claims Iran's access to nuclear warfare will put the world security in danger, while we have said times and again that nuclear arms have no position in our defense program," said Khatami.

He said that if the world is to name a government posing the greatest danger to global security it is the US government.

"The US government has over the past 50 years independently and indirectly launched military strikes on 25 independent states; if that's not insecurity, what is the meaning of insecurity then?" asked Khatami.

He further questioned, "Which country has a dirty record of nuclear strikes on the two cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Americans build up insecurity."
He went on to say that Americans intended to establish security in Afghanistan, but today, drunken American drivers kill people in the country and the people protesting the problem are given bullets in response.

Khatami further ridiculed Rice's claims, saying, "The US State Secretary says that if Iran's regime continues its current path, no other result but payment of a dear price will await it; if by dear cost it is meant economic sanctions, (I should say) we have been in sanctions for 27 years and we have benefited from it and made progress in science and technology in our country.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran changed the crisis, created by the US, into a chance for itself.

"If by dear cost it is meant the military strike, (I should say) eight years of war were imposed on us. Those are Americans that have paid the dear price; the US soldiers are today victims of the wrong policies of the US statesmen and popularity of (the US President George W.) Bush has fallen to 29 percent.

"The Iranian nation has shown in 27 years (since victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution) that is ready to pay any price in defense of the country and its aspirations."
He also dismissed the US State Secretary's claim that the precondition for the US talks with Iran is Tehran's suspending its nuclear activities.

"These (people) state their needs in the form of an incentive; You have for 27 years been wishing to talk with Iran and are still failed (to achieve your goals)," he went on to say.

Elsewhere in his sermon, the Iranian senior cleric held the US accountable for ethnic dispute in Iran.

He said that different ethnic groups have been leading a peaceful life in Iran for centuries and the core of their unity is Islam.

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