Despite calls for unity, Iran, Libya blast UN

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS – On a day when the U.N. and many nations appealed for global unity, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Wednesday denounced what they called an unjust world dominated by five powers.

The Iranian leader, touting his victory in "glorious" June elections, which the opposition claimed were stolen, did not mention the country's nuclear program in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly. He addressed the annual gathering immediately after six global powers who have been trying to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions announced they expect a "serious response" from Tehran in nuclear discussions on Oct. 1.

Ahmadinejad lashed out at what he said was the rapacious capitalism of the United States, its Western allies and Israel, which he accused of stealing Palestinian land. But he also offered a hand of friendship to any country that "honestly" extends one.

His comment followed an Associated Press interview Tuesday night in which he urged President Barack Obama to view Iran as a potential friend instead of a threat.

While Ahmadinejad announced a new Iranian commitment to help build "a durable peace and security worldwide for all nations," his speech was laced with anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic language which prompted a U.S. walkout. "It is disappointing that Mr. Ahmadinejad has once again chosen to espouse hateful, offensive and anti-Semitic rhetoric," said Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the U.N.

The seats of Israel, Canada and other countries also were empty in the sparsely filled assembly chamber.

Ahmadinejad predicted that "expansionist capitalism" will meet the same fate as Marxism, accusing unnamed powers of "using the ugliest methods of intimidation and deceit under the mantle of freedom."

He told the assembly that "most nations including the people of the United States are waiting for real and profound change."

Earlier, Libya's Gadhafi chastised the United Nations for failing to prevent dozens of wars and accused its most powerful members of treating other nations as "second-class, despised" countries.

In his first speech to the General Assembly in his 40 years as ruler of Libya, Gadhafi focused on the inequality of the U.N. Security Council where five permanent members — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — have veto power.

"It should be called the 'terror council,'" he said, calling for the veto to be abolished and membership to be expanded with a greater voice for Africa, Latin America, Arab and Muslim nations.

Gadhafi swept up the stairs to the podium in brown robes after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. President Barack Obama called for greater global engagement to move toward a world without nuclear weapons, tackle the threat of catastrophic climate change, and combat a global financial crisis that is expected to add 100 million people to the ranks of the world's poor this year.

"We have sought — in word and deed — a new era of engagement with the world," Obama told world leaders and diplomats from the 192 U.N. member states. "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

Ban opened the 64th ministerial meeting — more than 100 heads of state and government attended — with an appeal "to create a United Nations of genuine collective action" to respond to the global financial, food and energy crises and the swine flu pandemic.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy stressed the urgency of immediate action.

"We are right in the middle of an unprecedented financial and economic crisis. We are on the threshold of a planetary ecological disaster. We must right now invent a new world where the follies of yesterday will no longer be possible," the French leader said.

China's President Hu Jintao said "the trend towards peace, development and cooperation, which represent the call of our times, has grown stronger than ever."

And Russian President Dmitry Medvedev echoed his colleagues, saying: "The unification agenda has been dictated by life itself."

"We must act now, together," South African President Jacob Zuma said, "to halt the degradation of the environment ... (and) to prevent the global economic crisis from undoing the gains that we have achieved over decades."

While speaker after speaker focused on the future, Gadhafi was consumed by the past, accusing the world body of failing to prevent or intervene in 65 wars since the U.N. was founded in 1945, demanding massive reparations for the colonization of Africa, urging additional investigation into the deaths of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold in 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963, American civil rights leader Martin Luther King in 1968 and others.

Leaders are asked to speak for 15 minutes — and a red light goes on after that. Obama ignored the light and spoke for 38 minutes, but Gadhafi, perhaps making up for 40 years of avoiding the General Assembly, topped him by nearly an hour. He went on for 1 hour and 36 minutes, throwing the schedules of speakers after him into turmoil and disrupting Ban's luncheon in honor of delegates.

But Gadhafi's speech was far from the longest: Cuba's Fidel Castro spoke for 4 hours and 29 minutes in the 1960s, according to U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq.

Presidents, prime ministers and diplomats crowded into the General Assembly chamber for the opening speeches and Obama was applauded warmly though he didn't get a standing ovation. Gadhafi joined in the applause but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not.

As Gadhafi rambled on, referring repeatedly to handwritten notes in Arabic, the assembly chamber emptied.

At one point, he held up the U.N. Charter and made a small tear in the cover, signaling his disdain.

"How can we be happy about the world security if the world is controlled by four or five powers?" he complained. "We are just like a decor."

He called the General Assembly "the parliament of the world" — a 192-member body that should be dictating decisions to the Security Council.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking later, retorted: "I stand here to reaffirm the United Nations Charter, not to tear it up."

After Obama finished speaking, there was a 15 minute break, and the U.S. leader was long gone before Gadhafi spoke. All leaders were invited to the secretary-general's lunch — which was a possible meeting point — and Obama showed up and gave the traditional toast from the host nation. Gadhafi and Ahmadinejad skipped the lunch.

Tensions with the Libyan leader are high after Scotland recently released Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a Libyan who was convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, in which 270 people died.

When Ahmadinejad took the rostrum, many were carefully listening for any words suggesting a shift in Tehran's nuclear policy.

While Iran insists that its nuclear program is purely peaceful, the U.S. and its Western allies believe it is pursuing nuclear weapons. The Security Council has imposed three rounds of sanctions to pressure Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program and start negotiations. So far, sanctions have had no effect on Iran's position.

Foreign ministers from the five permanent council nations and Germany, who have been trying to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, met behind closed doors with the European Union's top negotiator on Wednesday to discuss prospects and expectations for lower-level talks with Iranian officials on Oct. 1 in Geneva.