US military policies to blame for Wall Street crisis

Washington: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a US newspaper the Wall Street crisis stemmed partly from American military interventions and said the next US president should back off what he called President George W. Bush's confrontational policies.

In a separate radio interview, Ahmadinejad - in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly - also said the UN's nuclear watchdog agency offers "the best guarantee" that Iran will enrich uranium for peaceful uses.

In an interview conducted on Monday with the Los Angeles Times, Ahmadinejad said: "The US government has made a series of mistakes in the past few decades. First, the imposition on the US economy of heavy military engagement and involvement around the world ... the war in Iraq, for example... These are heavy costs. 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 US government," he added.

In both interviews with the Times and National Public Radio, Ahmadinejad accused the United States of pressuring the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency to probe Iran's nuclear programme. He also told the Times that "all the documentation was forged" that questioned peaceful purposes of the programme. "It was so superficial that a school kid could laugh at it," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Washington believes Iran's effort is aimed at making a bomb, but Iran says it is for energy purposes.

The IAEA has released a report detailing Iran's non-cooperation with the agency's investigation of whether Iran had covertly researched ways to make an atomic bomb.

Major powers are considering a fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran.

Asked if Iran plans to reassure the world it intends to use its nuclear programme for peaceful uses only, Ahmadinejad told NPR Washington should "extend at least the equivalent of one-tenth the co-operation we have extended" to the IAEA.