Iranian President to West: “You Are Weak, Your Hands Are Empty, And You Can’t Force Us to Do Anything”
hmadinejad to West: You Are Weak, Your Hands Are Empty, And You Can’t Force Us to Do Anything; Nearly 7,000 Centrifuges Are Spinning Today 
at Natanz, Mocking You
In an April 15, 2009 speech in Kerman, Iran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran was working diligently to draw up a new proposals package, to be presented soon to the West. He said that this package would assure peace and justice for the nations, and that it must be the basis for any dialogue between Iran and the West.
In response to U.S. President Barack Obama’s “outstretched hand,” as he expressed in his April 1, 2009 speech, Ahmadinejad emphasized that the West was weak, and could not force anything on Iran. Ahmadinejad enumerated Iran’s demands for dialogue with the U.S.; the demands included the withdrawal of Western forces, the destruction of the West’s entire nuclear arsenal, and respect for Iran’s right to its nuclear program.
This response by Ahmadinejad is in addition to his previous response to Obama’s speech; in that response, Ahmadinejad noted that Iran would cut off any hand extended to attack it. [1] Also, on March 21, 2009, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei stated that it was the U.S. that had to change, particularly in regard to its policy towards Iran. [2]
It should also be noted that in response to being invited to the Hague Conference on Afghanistan, held March 31, 2009 - a conference which was attended by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - Iran sent a diplomat of the rank of deputy, Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Akhoundzadeh. Furthermore, in response to Clinton’s statement that U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke had met with Akhoundzadeh and that the Iranians had been given a letter concerning the four U.S. citizens missing in Iran, both Akhoundzadeh and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi denied that there had been any meeting and also the receipt of any letter. [3]
Also, recently the U.S. removed the precondition to negotiations with Iran that it had maintained for years - i.e. that Iran stop uranium enrichment. Since Iran absolutely refuses to discuss the issue of its uranium enrichment, the issue has now become a final aim of U.S. negotiations with Iran.
A senior U.S. State Department official said, in an anonymous April 15, 2009 interview with the London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, that the “contacts” proposed by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to Iran early this week are a kind of “discussions” that will constitute an “opportunity for serious negotiations” that will subsequently become a “possibility to solve the intricate problem… and then the joint work will begin, to deal with the international problem concerning Iran’s nuclear program.” [4]
The following are excerpts from Ahmadinejad’s speech at Kerman: [5]
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