Region | Iraq
Ahmadinejad says 'major powers' should leave Iraq
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday dismissed US accusations that his country is training extremists and demanded that the Americans withdraw from Iraq.
- Agencies
- Published: 19:18 March 3, 2008
Baghdad: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday dismissed US accusations that his country is training extremists and demanded that the Americans withdraw from Iraq.
Speaking in a nearly hour-long news conference at the end of his visit to Iraq, Ahmadinejad said the US allegations - that Iran is training Shiite militants who target American troops and Muslim rivals - don't matter to the Iranians.
"Of course American officials make such remarks and such statements, and we do not care ... because they make statements on the basis of erroneous information," said the hard-line Iranian leader, who smiled through much of the session. "We cannot count on what they say."
He said the foreign presence in Iraq was an "insult to the regional nations and a humiliation."
"The presence of foreigners in the region has been to the detriment of the nations of the region," Ahmadinejad said. "It is nothing but a humiliation to the regional nations.
"Their only achievements are that regional nations further dislike them, it adds to the regional nations' hatred. No one likes them."
Pressed by a reporter how he knows the Iraqis don't like the US, Ahmadinejad said that the "Iraqi people have been anti-colonialist and anti-occupation in the course of their history."
"If you go to the streets and talk to ordinary Iraqi people, you will be able to realise the true nature of such a claim," he said.
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