Ahmadinejad in fresh attack on Obama shuts door on multilateral nuclear diplomacy
The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struck back Saturday, June 27, barely 24 hours after US president Barack Obama poured scorn on him and warned that “direct dialogue or diplomacy with Iran” would be “affected by the events of the last several weeks.”
Clearly the Iranian president will not let Obama have the last word in their slanging match. This time he included Europe in his verbal offensive.
The Iranian president repeated his allegation that Obama and leaders of European countries had “insulted the Iranian nations with interference in internal matters” and went on to threaten: From now on we will push to a court of justice in every international meeting. This time the reply by the Iranian nation will be decisive and harsh and make you regret and be ashamed.”
This is taken by debkafile‘s sources as a hostile rejoinder to Obama’s statement Friday, June 26, alongside German chancellor Angela Merkel, that direct dialogue would be delayed, but the talks “compered by the P5-plus-1 group on Iran’s nuclear program would likely continue.” The world, said the US president, needs to recognize that the prospect of Iran with nuclear weapons was a “big problem.”
Tehran appears to be preparing to downgrade its ties – not only with the UK – but with other European states such as France and Germany for criticizing the June 12 election – which reelected Ahmadinejad by a wide margin – after both Obama and Merkel condemned the regime’s crackdown on the protest movement as “outrageous.”
Both the Guardian Council and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini have rejected allegation of voter fraud. A senior Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami, at a Friday sermon in Tehran, accused Iranian demonstrators of waging war against God, a crime punishable by death.
The official death toll from post-election violence is 17, but witnesses say it is much higher.
Iran’s crackdown has included heavy restrictions on reporting and the arrest of university professors, journalists and ordinary citizens. The street rallies against the regime subsided towards the end of the week.