lighthouse
04-26-2006, 06:29 AM
Iranian President insists 'Israel can not continue to live'
By Angus McDowall in Tehran
Published: 25 April 2006
For a man who meets the press so rarely, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is anything but media shy.
At a press conference for foreign journalists yesterday, only his third since winning Iran's election last June, the Iranian President basked in the attention, grinning at the banks of photographers, swapping banter with reporters and eventually arguing with the local press over who should be allowed to answer questions.
He was sitting in front of a surreal backdrop, which showed a child's outstretched hand ending in a divine white glow from which fluttered several doves, set against a photograph of a huge pro-regime demonstration in Tehran. It was not clear if the glow was meant to signify world peace or the beneficence of nuclear technology.
Just days before Friday's UN Security Council deadline expires for Iran to end its uranium enrichment programme or face possible sanctions, the firebrand President was in expansive and defiant mood. He said Iran was not frightened of sanctions, threatened to quit the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and insisted Tehran would not make any concessions on its programme that could eventually result in the production of a nuclear weapon.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...icle359954.ece
By Angus McDowall in Tehran
Published: 25 April 2006
For a man who meets the press so rarely, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is anything but media shy.
At a press conference for foreign journalists yesterday, only his third since winning Iran's election last June, the Iranian President basked in the attention, grinning at the banks of photographers, swapping banter with reporters and eventually arguing with the local press over who should be allowed to answer questions.
He was sitting in front of a surreal backdrop, which showed a child's outstretched hand ending in a divine white glow from which fluttered several doves, set against a photograph of a huge pro-regime demonstration in Tehran. It was not clear if the glow was meant to signify world peace or the beneficence of nuclear technology.
Just days before Friday's UN Security Council deadline expires for Iran to end its uranium enrichment programme or face possible sanctions, the firebrand President was in expansive and defiant mood. He said Iran was not frightened of sanctions, threatened to quit the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and insisted Tehran would not make any concessions on its programme that could eventually result in the production of a nuclear weapon.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...icle359954.ece