Iran to defend rights if new bans imposed: Ahmadinejad

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TEHRAN, June 4 (AFP): Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday that his country will defend its rights even if a new sanctions resolution is imposed by the UN Security Council.
"We are standing in the face of enemies. To defend the rights of the nation, we will pull out any resolutions from the mouth" of the enemies, the hardliner said in a speech marking the 21st death anniversary of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Last month the United States introduced a draft resolution to impose tough new UN sanctions on Iran for pursuing its controversial nuclear programme, saying it had the support of the four other permanent veto-wielding Security Council members, Russia, China, Britain and France.
Iran is already under three sets of UN sanctions for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.
Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, also lashed out at arch-foes Washington and Israel over the bungled Israeli raid on a Gaza aid flotilla on Monday.
"The US government should repent and know that such dead end positions of Mr (Barack) Obama will result in the end of the US government and so it should stop supporting the Zionist regime," Ahmadinejad said.
"I am also telling the Zionist regime's leaders that 60 years of atrocities are enough and I am warning you that any new aggression means certain death for the Zionist regime."
Animosity between Iran and Israel has worsened under Ahmadinejad who previously has said that Israel was doomed to be "wiped off the map".
Meanwhile, the Iranian president on Friday warned the country's opposition against straying from the path of the founder of the Islamic Revolution and slammed Israel for a deadly raid this week on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke before tens of thousands gathered at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in southern Tehran for a ceremony marking his death 21 years ago. The Khomeini-led Islamic revolution toppled the US-backed shah and brought hard-line Islamists to power in Iran in 1979.