UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - President Barack Obama warned Tuesday that the
United States would "do
what we must" to prevent Iran from getting
nuclear weapons, in a declaration to be given to the UN General
Assembly.
Advance excerpts from a speech the US leader was to give
on the first day of the United Nations summit showed he was also to
address the protests that swept the Muslim world this month in response
to an anti-Islam Internet video.
Just six weeks before he is due
to seek re-election, Obama is under pressure on the foreign policy
front, with criticism of his handling of the killing of US diplomats and
claims he is not standing closely enough behind Israel.
His
speech will attempt to answer those critics and reassure the world
leaders gathered in New York that he is determined to face down Iran.
"Make
no mistake: a nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be
contained," he was to declare, according to the advance remarks.
"It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations, and the stability of the global economy.
"That
is why a coalition of countries is holding the Iranian government
accountable. And that is why the United States will do what we must to
prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."
Iranian leader
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was also in New York preparing for his own
annual UN speech and was in typically defiant form, denying that Iran
is seeking the bomb and dismissing threats of military action.
Aside from Iran, the civil war in Syria was also due to dominate the agenda.
UN
leader Ban Ki-moon, France's President Francois Hollande and Qatar's
emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, a key backer of the Syrian
opposition, were expected to lambaste Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
on the opening morning.
The diplomatic assault will go on all week
as Arab and European leaders vent their outrage after UN-Arab League
envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned Monday that the conflict is worsening with
no immediate hope of ending the war.
Brahimi accused Assad of using "medieval forms of torture" on opponents.
The
Islamist occupation of northern Mali, conflict in eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo and Somalia's attempts to build a new state out of the
ruins of war will also be raised.
Obama also planned to address
the deadly protests that erupted across the Middle East in response to
an amateurish Internet video made by American Christian extremists that
insulted the prophet Mohammed.
"Today, we must affirm that our
future will be determined by people like Chris Stevens, and not by his
killers," he says, referring to the US ambassador killed with three
other Americans in an attack on the Benghazi consulate.
"Today, we
must declare that this violence and intolerance has no place among our
United Nations. There are no words that excuse the killing of innocents.
There is no video that justifies an attack on an embassy.
"There
is no slander that provides an excuse for people to burn a restaurant in
Lebanon, or destroy a school in Tunis, or cause death and destruction
in Pakistan."
The White House insisted ahead of the UN address
that it would not be a campaign speech, but the event will allow Obama
to respond to criticism of his foreign policy from his Republican
challenger Mitt Romney.
Romney accuses Obama of playing down the
murder of the four Americans in Benghazi and of failing to recognize the
threat posed by the rise of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the civil war
in Syria and Iran's nuclear quest.
The General Assembly is to carry
on through the weekend and into Monday, but the highpoints were to be
the leaders' speeches on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Source : Yahoo News