The World - Nuclear issue 'closed,' Iran tells the U.N. - Tehran says it will ignore demands to halt uranium enrichment. Germany, France warn of potential disaster.
UNITED NATIONS — Iran's defiant stance on its nuclear research program took center stage Tuesday at the opening of the General Assembly, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declaring the issue "closed" while leaders of France and Germany issued ominous warnings about his nation's alleged weapons ambitions.
"In the last two years, abusing the Security Council, the arrogant powers have repeatedly accused Iran and even made military threats and imposed illegal sanctions against it," Ahmadinejad said. "I officially announce that in our opinion the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed and has turned into an ordinary agency matter" between Iran and the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, he said.
The Iranian leader said his nation would ignore demands by the Security Council to halt uranium enrichment activities.
President Bush, in earlier remarks to the assembly, was nearly silent on the topic of Iran, and adopted a conciliatory tone far from his confrontational stance here five years ago when he argued his case against Iraq. He mentioned Iran only once, among a list of "brutal regimes" that he said denied their people fundamental rights, along with Belarus, North Korea and Syria.
In a day filled with 27 speeches, far more time was taken on other topics, including global warming, human rights, the situation in Sudan's Darfur region, and political dissent in Myanmar. But the issue of Iran bookmarked the day's sessions.
Ahmadinejad's remarks, though polarizing, found sympathizers at the General Assembly, where an annual dialogue plays out between rich and poor nations.
On the other side of the divide, France and Germany painted the Iranian leader as a dangerous rogue whose pursuit of nuclear know-how was one slippery step away from a weapon. "Let's not fool ourselves," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in the final speech of the day.
"If Iran were to acquire the nuclear bomb, the consequences would be disastrous."
She rejected Ahmadinejad's contention that Iran's development of nuclear technology was lawful, transparent and now only the business of the IAEA.
"The world does not have to prove to Iran that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. Iran has to convince the world that it is not striving toward such a bomb," she said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy focused suspicion on Iran earlier in the day, saying that to allow Tehran to develop nuclear weapons would mean an "unacceptable risk" for regional and world stability.
