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America, Britain have no place on U.N. Council: Ahmadinejad

Hugo Chavez suggests setting up a bank for developing nations

Havana: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has claimed the United States was the real nuclear threat and reiterated his insistence Tehran's nuclear atomic programme had peaceful aims.

``Why should people live under the nuclear threat of the United States?'' he asked at the summit of the 118-strong Non-Aligned Movement in Havana.

``What is the U.N. Security Council waiting for to react to those threats?''

He urged his counterparts to help ``counter attempts to prevent Iran from developing its peaceful nuclear activity.''

The United States is pushing for sanctions against Iran to force Tehran to stop producing enriched uranium, which can be used both for atomic energy and nuclear weapons.

"Arrogance and power"

Mr. Ahmadinejad said Iran had clearly demonstrated U.S. accusations were unfounded and insisted that the United States, ``knows our country has fully collaborated with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which declared we were not in violation of its norms.''

He also called for a thorough reform of the Security Council and suggested the United States and Britain had no place on the Council. ``The United States, with their arrogance and power, and Britain, how can those countries be represented and have a veto right?'' he asked in his address to the more than 55 heads of state and Government gathered for two days of talks in Havana.

He claimed Washington used the Council ``as a basis for imposing its policies.''

Speaking at the same forum, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez proposed the creation of a bank of developing nations to use international reserves for financing the development of these countries.

``If we are going to have a Bank of the South, we cannot lose one single day to use our international reserves to finance our development,'' he told the 14th Summit of 118-nation NAM here.

``Where are our reserves today?... in the countries of the North. This is about re-launching the potential of NAM and the basis of unity of this movement,'' Mr. Chavez said.

Coming down heavily against international financial institutions, he said ``we don't accept the kind of development the World Bank or International Monetary Fund wants to push on us to change our hopes, our souls and our pain.'' — AP, PTI

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