Iran president urges resistance to 'greedy' capitalism

INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCE: Sudan's President Al-Beshir and Zimbabwe's President Mugabe were also among the speakers at the Doha conference. (Getty Images)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday urged the world to resist the "greed" of capitalism and to prevent the rebuilding of the shattered global financial system.

"Capitalism has reached the end and current efforts will not save it, just as the socialist economy came to an end," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to a UN development conference in Doha broadcast on Iranian state television.

"We need to resist the greed of global capitalism... and try not to allow the current damaged system to rebuild itself," he told the conference, which is seeking ways to limit the impact on developing countries of the global financial crisis.

The outspoken Iranian president, one of only a small number of national leaders at the Qatar gathering, accused Western leaders of seeking to present their own economic crisis as a global problem.

"By applying force and propaganda they want to exact the price of the crisis from the pockets of other nations," he said, advising Western leaders to learn from their "wrong and selfish past behaviour."

He said the world should develop a new economic and banking model based on "spirituality, without usury, stemming from religious teachings." Ahmadinejad himself has faced mounting criticism in Iran over his expansionist economic policies and surging inflation, which has reached 30 percent.

A group of prominent economists also this month slammed Ahmadinejad over his confrontational attitude toward the rest of the world, which they said had cost the country dearly in lost trade and investment.

Iran is under international sanctions over its refusal to halt controversial nuclear work, which is feared to be a cover for weapons development. Tehran denies the charges.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Interested
Posted by Bloke on Sunday 30 November 2008 at 12:44 UAE time

I would be interested to hear what Iranians think of their President's comments and their thoughts of him generally. Do Iranians really want continual revolution or is that now just a fancy name for local corruption? He seems to enjoy the limelight though...I can't remember the previous guy saying much about anything at all outside his country...maybe I am missing something, I just don't understand what Iran's argument is with the rest of the world, are they, as a nation, just a bit paranoid?
Please note this is not a criticism, just a question.

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