UPDATE 1-Iran: US plot allegations resemble Iraq WMD claims
* Obama pushing for more sanctions on IranBy Robin PomeroyTEHRAN, Oct 17 (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
said on Monday U.S. allegations of an Iranian assassination plot
resembled its claims of weapons of mass destruction that formed
the basis for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and would prove to be
equally untrue.Ahmadinejad said Washington had fabricated the plot of an
Iranian seeking to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington
in order to cause a rift between Tehran and Saudi Arabia and
dominate the oil-rich Gulf.”In the past the U.S. administration claimed there were
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They said it so strongly,
they offered and presented documentations and everyone said
‘yes, we believe in you, we buy it’,” Ahmadinejad said in a live
interview on Al Jazeera television.”Now is everyone asking them, were those claims true? Did
they find any weapon of mass destruction in Iraq? They
fabricated a bunch of papers. Is that a difficult thing to do?”The truth will be revealed ultimately and there will be no
problem for us at that time,” Ahmadinejad said.U.S. President Barack Obama hopes the foiled alleged plot
will lead to tighter sanctions against Iran — already under
several rounds of U.N. measures over its nuclear programme —
and repeated that all options are on the table to deal with the
Islamic republic — a tacit threat of possible military action.When asked whether he thought Iran and the United States were
on an inevitable “collision course” towards military conflict,
Ahmadinejad replied: “I don’t think so.”I think that there are some people in the U.S.
administration who want this to happen but I think there are
wise people in the U.S. administration who know they shouldn’t
do such a thing.”Nevertheless, the commander of the Iranian army ground
forces said his troops were “fully prepared and ready to give a
quick response to any aggression on Iran’s soil”.”Today America is too unsteady to even think about launching
an attack on Iran,” Ahmad Reza Pourdastan told the semi-official
Fars news agency.HEINOUSSaudi Arabia, Iran’s main rival in the Gulf and with close
ties with Washington, requested the United Nations look into
what it called the “heinous conspiracy” and
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday he had passed
correspondence about the affair to the Security
Council.Ahmadinejad called on Saudis not to fall for a U.S. strategy
which he said aimed to divide and conquer the Gulf.”If the U.S. administration is under the impression that by
doing this it can create conflict between us and Saudi Arabia
then I have to say the U.S. administration is sorely mistaken.”The U.S. administration is not interested in Iran or in
Saudi Arabia. They see their interests in having a dispute
between Iran and Saudi Arabia — they want to dominate our
region,” he said.Iran’s relations with Saudi Arabia have been strained by the
events of the “Arab Spring” as each tries to assert its position
in the region amid a welter of sectarian and geo-political
rivalries.Even before the Arab uprisings began, a leaked U.S. cable
published on WikiLeaks said Saudi King Abdullah had urged the
United States to “cut off the head of the snake” by launching
military strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme.The plot furore appears to have killed any chance of a rapid
return to talks between Tehran and world powers concerned about
its nuclear programme , but Foreign Minister Ali
Akbar Salehi said Iran would examine the allegations.”We are prepared to examine any issue, even if fabricated,
seriously and patiently, and we have called on America to submit
to us any information in regard to this scenario,” he was quoted
as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
