Iran Says U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Is Biased

By Vijay Joshi 
March 3, 2006 
The Washington Post
Original Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/03/AR2006030300057.html

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Iran's hardline president accused the U.N. nuclear watchdog Friday of politically motivated behavior over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, and threatened the downfall of bullying Western powers and Zionists.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an audience in Malaysia that the International Atomic Energy Agency's treatment of the Islamic Republic of Iran is politically motivated.

The IAEA board of governors meets in Vienna, Austria, Monday to recommend action on Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to issue sanctions against the Muslim theocracy.

Ahmadinejad did not refer directly to the meeting or the possibility of sanctions, but he charged that the IAEA was biased because a majority of its board of governors are Westerners.

Nineteen of the 35 nations on the board of governors are Muslim, Latin American, Asian or African.

During a question-answer session after the speech, Ahmadinejad said that 18 of the 35 members on IAEA's board are chosen from Western allies.

Regrettably most international organizations have turned into political organizations and the influence of great powers prevents them from taking fair and legally sound decisions, Ahmadinejad said.

Iran is under pressure from the IAEA to show that its nuclear program is not intended to make atomic bombs. Iran says it only wants to use nuclear power to generate electricity.
On Thursday, Ahmadinejad said Iran wold not surrender its inalienable rights to nuclear power.

He also asserted that a wave of awareness sweeping the fragmented Muslim world will turn into a gigantic force that will engulf current political alliances.

Domination and bullying will not last much longer, he said in a lecture in Kuala Lumpur on the last day of a three-day official visit. Bullies and Zionists beware! You are going to fall!

Ahmadinejad attributed most of the problems faced by the Muslim world to the hegemonic tendencies of bullying powers, an apparent reference to the United States and Europe.

A former Teheran mayor who took office last June with the backing of his country's hardline clergy, Ahmadinejad has provoked outrage with statements that Israel should be wiped off the map and that the Holocaust was a myth.

For 60 years, Muslims have lived in anger because of the occupying Zionist regime, he said Friday. Not a day goes by without Palestinians being killed, their houses destroyed ... . Unfortunately today the self-appointed champions of human rights are the main backers and full supporters of the Zionist regime.

He also lashed out against European newspapers for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, noting that it is illegal to deny the Holocaust in some European countries.