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Ahmadinejad: The West Are Lying, Iran Is Ready For Nuclear Talks

By: EW News Desk Team Date: 27 January 2012

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27 January 2012

Iran is ready to commence talks over its nuclear programme but western countries have been deliberately attempting to dodge any discussions, claimed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a public rally in the southeastern city of Kerman on Thursday.

“They (the western countries) claim that Iran doesn’t want negotiations but it isn’t so,” maintained Ahmadinejad, as quoted by Bloomberg. “Every time they seek pretexts, and as we approach talks they issue resolutions so that perhaps negotiations don’t take place.”

"Why should we shun talks? Why and how should a party that has logic and is right shun talks? It is evident that those who resort to coercion are opposed to talks and always bring pretexts and blame us instead,” added Ahmadinejad, as cited by the Associated Press.

Ahmadinejad was speaking to factory workers, when he launched his tirade against Western countries following the EU’s decision to ban oil petrochemical imports from Iran and to freeze Iranian central bank assets on January 23^rd.

According to Ahmadinejad, the EU embargo would have little effect on the Iranian economy, as other export markets would easily be able to compensate for the shortfall in oil sales to Europe.

Furthermore, Ahamadinejad claims, the biggest impact to Iran would be to its general population rather than to its government officials, which the US and Europe have long insisted were the only targets.

“The US says sanctions against Iran are directed at officials, not the people, but these types of sanctions will affect the core of the population and won’t harm officials,” asserted Ahmadinejad at the rally. “The West is targeting our population.”

But, the statistics seem to contradict with Ahmadinejad’s statements. The value of Iran's currency, the riyal, for instance has already fallen by nearly 50 percent against the US dollar in the past month, claimed the Wall Street Journal, while Iranian banks were recently ordered to increase their interest rates to 21 percent in order to encourage Iranians to keep their capital in domestic banks, rather than exchanging them for US dollars and gold.

Related: Iran Economy

And while Ahmadinejad has placed the fault for the lack of negotiations purely at the feet of Western countries, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has asserted that US and the EU has always wanted to return to talks but only if Iran’s leaders agreed to a “serious dialogue.”

“Just meetings for propaganda and show is not what we are seeking,” said Westerwelle.

Negotiations between Iran and other world powers broke down in January last year without any commitments to hold future discussions. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton at the time said that she was “disappointed” that Iran had demanded an end to United Nations sanctions before substantive talks about its nuclear work could begin.