28-03-2024 07:32 PM Jerusalem Timing

Ahmadinejad: West Should Neither Intervene, Nor Impose No-Fly Zone in Libya

Ahmadinejad: West Should Neither Intervene, Nor Impose No-Fly Zone in Libya

’Show me one single dictator who is not supported by the United States and Europe’

While renewing his condemnation of Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi's bombardment of his own people, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Western powers Tuesday against imposing a no-fly zone or taking other military action in Libya, saying any armed intervention in Libya would make things worse.
  
In an interview with Spanish television in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said he thinks that military invention would make things even worse. “We have the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan. It made things worse, not better,” he told the public television station TVE.
 
"I hope the European and US governments do not intervene in the affairs of this region and let the people of this region decide their future," the Iranian leader said. "If they do not intervene in the affairs of this region I think the people of this region, for example the Libyan people, can decide their future," he said.

Ahmadinejad also condemned Gaddafi's severe actions. "That action is not acceptable," he said. "Whoever bombards his own people should be condemned."
 
Asked whether Tehran would support a no-fly zone, he said: "The Westerners have to cast aside their colonialist ambitions."
The United Nations Security Council will Tuesday discuss plans being pushed by France and Britain to impose a no-fly zone.
  
The Iranian president accused the West of propping up the world's dictatorships. "My question is clear: who sold the 60 billion (dollars) in arms to the countries of this region?" he asked. "In the entire world, who in the past 50 years has supported the dictatorships? Show me one single dictator who is not supported by the United States and Europe," he added.