Iran's leader defiant in face of new sanctions

NEW YORK -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that his country won't be deterred by the threat of new U.N. economic sanctions over its nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad spoke at a New York news conference Tuesday as the U.S. and its allies were negotiating for U.N. Security Council approval of further sanctions to pressure Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, which Western powers allege is aimed at building atomic bombs.

The Iranian president said new sanctions would mean that U.S. President Barack Obama has given up on his campaign to engage Iran diplomatically.

"While we do not welcome sanctions, we do not fear them either," Ahmadinejad said. "We feel that the U.S. government will be damaged more than us by those sanctions."

Despite Iran's defiance, major powers on the U.N. Security Council appeared undeterred.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov said Tuesday he was "reasonably optimistic" that an agreement can be reached on a fourth round of sanctions over Tehran's uranium enrichment program.

"I do believe the talks are slowly moving forward. There's definitely some space to bridge over. But I wouldn't over-exaggerate the differences," Ryabkov said.

Arab countries, meanwhile, sought to turn attention to Israel on Tuesday as delegates from 189 countries debated how to stem the spread of nuclear weapons.

On the second day of the monthlong meeting at the United Nations, Arab countries reiterated calls for a nuclear-free Middle East with criticism of Israel's unacknowledged nuclear arsenal and failure to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The first day of the conference was dominated by rhetorical crossfire between the United States and Iran, as Ahmadinejad rejected allegations his country was building nuclear weapons while the U.S. said sanctions were necessary to stop the Iranian programs.

On Tuesday, Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh expressed frustration at the lack of progress on implementing a nuclear-free Middle East, a goal that was declared in a resolution of a previous meeting of NPT signatories.

He said that Israel's failure to sign the NPT and allow international monitoring of its nuclear program "renders the NPT a source of instability in the Middle East."

Egypt has proposed that this 2010 NPT conference back a plan calling for the start of negotiations next year on such a Mideast zone. The proposal may become a major debating point in the monthlong session.

The United States has cautiously supported the idea while saying that implementing the idea must wait for progress in the Middle East peace process. The position reflected a middle ground as the Obama administration sought to satisfy Arab countries while keeping the spotlight of the conference on Iran's nuclear program.

The Israeli U.N. mission declined to comment on the specifics of the conference, but told The Associated Press that Israel's stance on nonproliferation continues to be that an accepted political solution for comprehensive peace in the Middle East should first be reached.

Speaking Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the United States was "prepared to support practical measures" toward a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.

The NPT is formally reviewed every five years at a meeting of treaty members -- which include all the world's nations except India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, all of which either have confirmed or are believed to have nuclear weapons.

The review conference is meant to produce a final document pointing toward ways to better achieve the NPT's goals of checking the spread of nuclear weapons, while working toward reducing and eventually eliminating them.

Because it requires a consensus of all parties, including Iran, any final document would be highly unlikely to censure the Tehran government, which would block consensus.