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Iran not caving in to pressure: Envoy

12 November 2010 19:00 (UTC +04:00)

Iranian Ambassador to Jakarta Mahmoud Farazandeh says Tehran will not cave in to pressure, accusing Western powers of seeking to sow unrest in the Middle East, APA reports quoting Press TV.

"In the past three decades, world powers and their allies have relentlessly sought to inconvenience or disturb the peace of Muslims in the Middle East," Farazandeh said on Friday.

"For example with regards to Iran, they made claims of vote-fraud in the country’s [2009] presidential elections and [they] instigated that sedition," IRNA quoted the Iranian diplomat as saying.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed a landslide victory in the 2009 presidential election, which witnessed a whopping 85 percent voter turnout. Ahmadinejad’s re-election resulted in violent protests by the supporters of some defeated presidential candidates, who took to the streets setting fire to trashcans and vandalizing public and private property.

"The West, with its anti-Iran propaganda, seeks to bring Iran to its knees but this will never happen," said Farazandeh. "Iran’s presidential election was fair and healthy and no fraud took place."

"When the West realized it could not face the resolute stance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is always seeking justice, they tried to provoke that sedition [movement]."

"Although the Westâ€¦ accuses Iran of making efforts to build nuclear weapons and disrupt world peace, we have repeatedly said our nuclear activities are with peaceful intentions and we only seek to generate energy," Farazandeh said.

While the US possesses and has used nuclear weapons in the past, Washington has pushed for several rounds of UN Security Council resolutions and adopted unilateral sanctions against Iran over accusations that the Islamic Republic is following a military nuclear program.

Iranian officials have repeatedly refuted the allegations, stressing that as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty the country is solely interested in the peaceful applications of nuclear technology.

The Iranian diplomat said there is no difference between US President Barack Obama, who ran for presidency on the slogan of ’change,’ and former president George W. Bush.

"Obama has the same policies as Bush this is why we see the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine are still waging."

Farazandeh said despite promising to withdraw American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan after taking office, Obama "deployed an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan and when violence surged in Iraqâ€¦ he was invited to Norway and was given the Nobel Peace Prize."