AJC Denounces Shameful Ahmadinejad Speech to UN

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May 03, 2010, 03:46 ET

NEW YORK, May 3 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Jewish Committee denounced the speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the United Nations conference reviewing the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which opened today at UN Headquarters in New York.

"Ahmadinejad's entire speech was built on an odious and obvious lie: the denial that his regime is developing nuclear weapons," said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "Why, then, has the Iranian regime in the last four years defied four UN Security Council resolutions demanding a halt to its uranium enrichment program? Why does Iran spurn meaningful international inspections of its nuclear sites, including those which it currently operates in secret? And why does Iran continue to make bloodcurdling threats to wipe Israel from the map?"

Ahmadinejad's speech was laced with anti-American and anti-Semitic invective. From a UN podium, he refused to call Israel, a UN member state since 1949, by its name, referring in derogatory fashion to the "Zionist regime." Ahmadinejad also made the spurious claim that the United States and Israel support "major terrorist networks."

"Yet again, a UN forum, this time on a critical global security issue, has been derailed by Iran's President," Harris said. "We pay tribute to those UN delegations, among them the United States and the vast majority of the European Union, who walked out of the room rather than dignify this tyrant."

In a keynote speech to AJC's Annual Gala in Washington, D.C. last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated the Obama Administration's commitment to ensuring that Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee