Ahmadinejad calls UN Security Council "political retards"

Dec 24, 2010, 10:38 GMT

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the member states of the UN Security Council were 'political retards' for still believing in the effectiveness of sanctions, the news agency ILNA reported Friday.

'The officials of those countries who in the third millennium still think sanctions are an effective means are politically retarded,' the ILNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a visit to Istanbul.

The member states of the UN Security Council with the exception of Brazil, Turkey and Lebanon voted overwhelmingly for a fourth sanctions resolution against Iran in June over the Islamic state's nuclear programme.

Ahmadinejad claimed, as he has previously, that the UN sanctions have no effect as neither the United States nor Europe has any major role in the Iranian economy.

He said the next nuclear meeting with world powers, scheduled to be held at the end of next month in Istanbul would be an important opportunity to settle the dispute.

But he again stated that Iran would not be intimidated into forsaking its right to pursue peaceful nuclear technology.

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