NEW YORK — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that his country won’t be deterred by the threat of new U.N. economic sanctions over its nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad spoke at a New York news conference Tuesday as the United States and its allies were negotiating for U.N. Security Council approval of further sanctions to pressure Tehran to suspend its uranium-enrichment program, which Western powers allege is aimed at building atomic bombs.
The Iranian president said new sanctions would mean that U.S. President Barack Obama has given up on his campaign to engage Iran diplomatically.
Despite Iran’s defiance, major powers on the U.N. Security Council appeared undeterred.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday that he was “reasonably optimistic” that an agreement can be reached on a fourth round of sanctions over Tehran’s enrichment program.
“There’s definitely some space to bridge over,” Ryabkov said. “But I wouldn’t overexaggerate the differences.”
Arab countries, meanwhile, sought to turn attention to Israel on Tuesday as delegates from 189 countries debated how to stem the spread of nuclear weapons.
On the second day of the month-long meeting at the United Nations, Arab countries reiterated calls for a nuclear-free Middle East with criticism of Israel’s unacknowledged nuclear arsenal and failure to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
The first day of the conference was dominated by rhetorical crossfire between the U.S. and Iran, as Ahmadinejad rejected allegations that his country was building nuclear weapons while the U.S. said sanctions were necessary to stop the Iranian programs.
On Tuesday, Jordan Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh expressed frustration at the lack of progress on implementing a nuclear-free Middle East, a goal that was declared at a previous meeting of NPT signatories. He said that Israel’s failure to sign the NPT and to allow monitoring of its nuclear program “renders the NPT a source of instability in the Middle East.”
Egypt has proposed that this conference back a plan calling for the start of negotiations next year on such a Mideast zone. The proposal may become a major debating point in the session.
The Israeli U.N. mission told The Associated Press that Israel’s stance on nonproliferation continues to be that an accepted political solution for comprehensive peace in the Middle East should first be reached.
