U.S. financial crisis partly due to military adventures: Iran

New York, Sept 24 (PTI) Iran has said that the turmoil on
Wall Street is rooted partly in U.S. military intervention
abroad and hoped that the next American administration would
retreat from President George Bush's "logic of force".


"We do not believe that the U.S. policy perspective,
looking at the rest of the world as a field of confrontation,
will give good results," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
said.

"Problems do not arise suddenly," he said. "The U.S.
government has made a series of mistakes in the past few
decades. First, the imposition on the U.S. economy of heavy
military engagement and involvement around the world...
the war in Iraq, for example. . . . These are heavy costs, he
added in an interview to Los Angeles Times.

"The world economy can no longer tolerate the budgetary
deficit and the financial pressures occurring from markets
here in the United States, and by the U.S. government," he
said.

He declined to say whether he preferred to confront a
Republican administration led by John McCain, who opposes
negotiating with Iran, or a Democratic one headed by Barack
Obama.Obama says he would talk to Iran under certain
conditions. Nor did he suggest a fresh approach by Iran to
Bush's successor.

Israel was doomed like "an airplane that has lost its
engine and that Western intelligence documents questioning
peaceful purpose of Iran's nuclear programme are crude
forgeries, Ahmadinejad said.

"Any (U.S.) government that comes to power must change
previous policy approaches," he said, adding that he was ready
to speak with either of the candidates while in New York this
week. "We're interested in having friendly relations."

In discussing Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands,
the Iranian leader touched on his well-publicised refusal to
accept the Holocaust as historical fact.

"Who are these people? Where did they come from?" he
asked in reference to Jews who founded the state of Israel in
the wake of the Nazi slaughter in Europe during World War II.

Ahmadinejad said he was not concerned about Israel's
effort, by means of indirect negotiations through Turkish
mediators, to woo Syria away from its alliance with Iran.
Israel wants Syria to shut down the militant groups'
operations; in return, Syria seeks a return of the Golan
Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967.

"We believe that the freedom of the Golan Heights is
exactly what the Zionist regime does not want," the Iranian
leader said. "We think it is very unlikely it will happen as a
result of the negotiations."

The Iranian leader, who is seeking re-election next year
acknowledged that the sanctions, the global financial crisis
and wars in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan were hurting
Iran's oil-fuelled economy, which is beset by inflation,
unemployment and shortages of gasoline. PTI DS
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