Source: Alalam.ir, 03-06-2008
ROME--Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Western countries Tuesday of acting to devalue the dollar, fueling a surge in oil and food prices.
In a speech to a food crisis summit in Rome, he said: "It is clear that visible and invisible hands are working to control prices to achieve their political and economic aims."
Separately he called for the food crisis to be tackled outside of the UN system, accusing Western powers of imposing their will on the UN Security Council.
Addressing summit participants, including some 50 world leaders, he said: "How can UN mechanisms improve the situation when certain powers impose their decisions on the Security Council, using it as an instrument."
Ahmadinejad joined leaders including the presidents of Brazil, France, Argentina, Egypt and Iran at the Rome conference at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Before leaving Tehran, Ahmadinejad said that Iran, as an influential nation in the economy and agriculture, has clear solutions, programs and suggestions for the fair production and distribution of food supply in the world.
Addressing European people, Ahmadinejad said: "The people of Europe have suffered the most harm from Zionists and today the costs of that falsified regime, whether political or economic, are on Europe's shoulders."
He added: "I do not believe my statements [at the conference] will cause any problems. People love what I say because they are trying to save themselves from the oppression of Zionists."
UN chief Ban Ki-moon opened the summit Tuesday calling for a 50 percent rise in food production to help ease a food price crisis that threatens to plunge millions more people into poverty.
Jacques Diouf, the head of the FAO, warned leaders that the amount of money spent on food aid for the third world had more than halved in real terms from £4 billion in 1980 to £1.7 billion in 2004.
"Resources to finance agricultural programs in developing countries are decreasing, not rising," he said.
He added his attempt to draw attention to the problem last December, and to ask for £800 million in grants for fertilizer and seed in the third world, had been ignored.
He also criticized the emphasis placed by Western countries on global warming but the lack of attention to food.