Ahmadinejad blames U.S. 'mischief' for WikiLeaks dump and insists Arab nations are Iran's friends
By Ian Drury
UPDATED: 08:19, 30 November 2010
Documents show Saudi Arabia 'frequently exhorted' U.S. to attack 'snake' Iran
Documents also detail Pakistan nuclear fears
Cables highlight concerns over Karzai and his brother
Iran's president dismissed reports that Arab leaders wanted the U.S. to attack his country and insisted the neighboring countries were all friends.
At a Monday press conference President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the latest WikiLeaks document dump of diplomatic memos a waste of time engineered by the U.S. government to cause 'mischief'.
According to the memos,
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran, destroy its nuclear programme and stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon.
Ahmadinejad spoke out against the WikiLeaks revelations of Arab hostility to Iran even though he said the documents are 'so worthless that it isn't worth someone referring to them or wasting time to refer to them'
Ahmadinejad spoke out against the WikiLeaks revelations of Arab hostility to Iran even though he said the documents are 'so worthless that it isn't worth someone referring to them or wasting time to refer to them'
'We don't give any value to these documents,' Ahmadinejad told the news conference.
'It's without legal value. Iran and regional states are friends. Such acts of mischief have no impact on relations between nations.'
Ahmadinejad alleged the leaks were an 'organized' effort by the U.S. to stir trouble between Iran and Arab neighbors.
'We don't think this information was leaked. We think it was organised to be released on a regular basis and they are pursuing political goals.'
Ahmadinejad accused the American government of pursuing a strategy resembling 'an intelligence and psychological war game.'
'Nations are aware. Such a game will have no effect. It's so worthless that it isn't worth someone referring to them or wasting time to refer to them.'
But according to the leaked documents, Saudi Arabia 'frequently exhorted' Washington to launch an air strike against the regime in Tehran.
In a report of a 2008 meeting with U.S. General David Petraeus, the Saudi ambassador to Washington said King Abdullah wanted the White House 'to cut the head off the snake' before Iran developed nuclear weapons and threatened its neighbours in the Middle East.
The Saudi king has urged American to launch airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities
The secret document revealed that the Saudis demanded 'severe U.S. and international sanctions on Iran, including a travel ban and further restrictions on bank lending'.
It added that 'the use of military pressure against Iran should not be ruled out'.
King Abdullah was backed by the King of Bahrain who warned in a cable: 'The danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it.'
And the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed, told the U.S. that he believed that Iran's tyrannical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was 'going to take us to war'.
Leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to I
ran 'as 'evil,' an 'existential threat' and a power that 'is going to take us to war,'' the Guardian said.
Those documents may prove the most problematic because even though the concerns of the Gulf Arab states are known, their leaders rarely offer such stark appraisals in public.
The revelations will reverberate around the world and are likely to ratchet up tension in the Middle East.
The statements will bolster the case of Israeli and U.S. hawks who believe an attack against Iran will be necessary during the near future.
But they will also provoke
President Ahmadinejad - referred to in one missive as 'Hitler' - to press on with his nuclear programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed earlier this year that Iran had produced its first small batch of higher-grade enriched uranium - stoking fears it was secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons capacity.
Iran is not the only country in the Middle East to be mentioned in the diplomatic cables.
They also detail a dangerous stand-off with Pakistan over nuclear fuel.
The New York Times reported that the U.S. has mounted a highly secret - and so far unsuccessful - effort to take enriched uranium out of a Pakistani research reactor for fears it could be used for a nuclear bomb.
In May, 2009, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American experts.
She said a Pakistani official had claimed that if the local media discovered the fuel removal, 'they would certainly portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons'.
Read more:
WikiLeaks: Ahmadinejad blames US for leaks insists Arab nations are Iran's friends | Mail Online
