Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, worried about a possible military attack by the United States or Israel? Talking to Brazilian and foreign journalists Monday night, in Brazilian capital BrasÀlia, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran said he doesn't fear any reprisal against his nuclear program. Neither the US or Israel, he states, "have the courage" to start a war against Teheran.
"The era of military attacks is over," he said. "Now is the time for dialogue and understanding. Weapons and threats belong to the past. They are things for mentally challenged people. Those [countries] you [reporter] mentioned wouldn't have the courage to do this, they don't even think about it."
Commenting on a gay man who unfurled a gay movement banner during the press conference and was promptly dragged out of the place by the security service he said:
"I think that the groups who wish to interfere are minorities. (…) We believe that people should be free to express their ideas. In Brazil this freedom exists. And they are allowed to express themselves and make their statements. And in Iran this freedom exists too."
On the subject of peace in the Gaza Strip, the Iranian leader once again proposed that Palestinians hold a referendum to decide their future including the possible extinction of the state of Israel.
When asked if the image of president Lula would help his government to seem more legitimate before the international community, Ahmadinejad stated that his government is already legitimate because he was chosen in an election in which 85% of the population took part. "Our relations with Brazil are based on friendship. The government's legitimacy comes from the Iranian people."
Ahmadinejad talked to journalists for close to an hour in an auditorium set up in the hotel he is staying in Brasília. He praised Brazilians calling them "nice, cultured, peaceful". He also said that like Brazil his country had the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful goals.
Earlier, in the Congress, the Iranian president had affirmed the UN's Security Council as well as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund had all failed in the role they were created for.
"The controls created since the Second World War failed. The UN's Security Council is not able to perform its role. It wasn't capable of bringing the world security. The current conditions are worse than they were years ago," he observed.
The Iranian president stated that the UN Security Council structure is contrary to the world peace because it is based on discrimination. According to him, almost every war in the last six decades had the intervention of one of the five countries with veto power – United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France and China – and these countries were never put on trial for their actions.
For Ahmadinejad, "sovereign countries with a human vision," like Brazil should also get a seat at the Security Council. He suggested and end to the veto power.
The Palestine issue, he told congressmen, was produced by the Second World War, with the creation of Israel without the creation of a Palestinian state as a counterbalance.
He reminded that dozens of plans were already offered in an attempt to solve the Palestine question, but all of them failed because they were not based on justice among peoples. And once again he pointed out that the Palestinians cannot be blamed for the 60 million deaths from the Second World War.
José Sarney, the president of the Brazilian senate also defended the creation of a Palestine state:Â "The world's best news," he declared, "would be the end of the conflict between Arabs and Jews."
At his arrival in Congress the Iranian president was received with protests by two House representatives, Marcelo Itagiba and Zenaldo Coutinho, from the opposition PSDB party, who opened a banner with the message "Holocaust – never again".
