Ahmadinejad

UNITED NATIONS — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told world leaders his country will defy any further U.N. Security Council resolutions imposed by "arrogant powers" seeking to curb its nuclear program, accusing them of lying and imposing illegal sanctions against Tehran.

He said it is "high time for these powers to return from the path of arrogance and obedience to Satan to the path of faith in God."

Undeterred, France and Germany increased pressure on the Islamic republic at the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting on Tuesday, saying they would not accept a nuclear-armed Iran.

"Let's not fool ourselves. If Iran were to acquire the nuclear bomb, the consequences would be disastrous," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the session.

The high-level General Assembly session today features speeches by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had been slotted to speak in the afternoon, but he pulled out at the last minute, leaving his foreign minister to take his place.

Ahmadinejad on Tuesday also indirectly accused the United States and Israel of violating human rights by setting up secret prisons, abducting people, holding trials and enacting secret punishments without any regard to due process, and tapping phone conversations.

"They use various pretexts to occupy sovereign states and cause insecurity and division and then use the prevailing situation as an excuse to continue their occupation. For more than 60 years, Palestine, as compensation for the loss they incurred during the war in Europe, has been under the occupation of the illegal Zionist regime," he said.

Referring to the U.S. government's policy on Iraq, he said: "They even oppose the constitution, National Assembly and the government established by the vote of the people, while they do not even have the courage to declare their defeat and exit Iraq."

Ahmadinejad told leaders that the world powers on the Security Council had politicized Tehran's nuclear program, making military threats and imposing sanctions against the country as they demanded it suspend uranium enrichment.

He announced to the assembly that the nuclear issue was now "closed" as a political issue and Iran would pursue the monitoring of its nuclear program "through its appropriate legal path," the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.