Iran will "resist" Western bullies attempting to prevent the country from acquiring civilian nuclear technology, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the United Nations on Tuesday, AFP reported.
Iran "will resist the bullying and has defended and will continue to defend its rights," Ahmadinejad said in a defiant speech to the UN General Assembly.
In a clear reference to the United States and its allies, he said: "They oppose other nations' progress and tend to monopolize technologies and to use those monopolies in order to impose their will on other nations."
Despite three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions, Iran continues to defy calls by the United States and its Western allies to halt uranium enrichment -- a process the West and Israel fear is being used to make an atomic bomb.
Iran says it aims only peaceful civilian nuclear energy.
Ahmadinejad lashed out equally at Israel and its chief ally the United States, saying "the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters."
He added: the "American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road."
Apparently referring to countries such as Russia, Syria and Venezuela, which frequently speak out strongly against the United States, Ahmadinejad said: "A universal resistance against the acquisitiveness, aggression and selfishness of the bullying powers is being formed."