Ahmadinejad: New US sanctions unlikely

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has cast doubts that Washington will seek new international sanctions against Tehran, saying the time for embargoes is over.

“In a status where countries are seeking free trade, talk of embargoes is meaningless,” Ahmadinejad said in a Tuesday meeting with the prominent Al-Ahram columnist and Egyptian Islamic thinker, Fahmi Howeidi.

“At any rate, they have already imposed sanctions against our country, but achieved nothing. The world is a big place and all states are not controlled by a certain bullying regime,” he said.

“Embargoes are a thing of the past. I don't believe that the US government is trying to enforce sanctions against us.”

The Iranian president also commented on the Palestinian issue and said the dispute could not be resolved with the solutions Western powers bring to the table.

“Undoubtedly, the Palestinian issue and problems in other parts of the world can easily be solved by returning to justice and the truth,” Ahmadinejad said.

For his part, Howeidi differentiated the world of Islam from the Arab world, praising Iran and Turkey for contributing 'a great deal' to the Palestinian issue and expressed hoped that Arab states would soon follow their lead.

The Muslim intellectual said that resistance movements in today's Palestine are facing increasing pressure to sign an agreement with the Israeli regime in return for nothing.