Iranians deserve better from a leadership which is taking them in the "wrong direction" with repression at home and confrontation abroad, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Monday.
"Sadly, Iran is now moving in the wrong direction" under the hardline leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Straw said in a speech.
Iranians deserve better from a leadership which is taking them in the "wrong direction" with repression at home and confrontation abroad, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Monday.
"Sadly, Iran is now moving in the wrong direction" under the hardline leadership of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Straw said in a speech.
Since his election last year, Ahmadinejad and his hardline coterie "have adopted policies at home and abroad which risk real damage to Iran's reputation and its relations with the rest of the world," Straw said.
Concerns were mounting not just because of Tehran's nuclear ambitions but also on account of its opposition to the Middle East peace process, support for radical groups, and poor record on human rights and political freedoms.
"Iran and the Iranian people deserve better," Straw said at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Ahmadinejad's predecessor Mohammad Khatami had been moving in the "right direction" with political freedoms and "a debate about how Islam could be reconciled with modern understandings of democracy and human rights," he said.
Straw said the international community was right to be worried about Iran's nuclear program because it could affect the stability of the region, leading other states to seek biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.
In Tehran earlier, Ahmadinejad vowed to press on with the country's nuclear activities and played down the threat of economic sanctions ahead of a key UN Security Council meeting on the country's atomic program.
Iran kicked off the recent standoff by refusing to comply with an IAEA demand to suspend the research activities on enrichment it had resumed on January 10.
