‘US-led forces stoke instability in ME’

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has criticized the presence of US-led foreign troops in the Middle East, saying they escalate instability in the region.

The Iranian chief executive made the remarks during an interview broadcast live on the national television on Tuesday night.

“We are against the presence of the US military forces in the region, and we believe that in order to avoid any encounter, the US forces should leave the region,” he said, according to the presidential official website.

Noting the forces’ contribution to regional unease, he said the Islamic Republic, along with its neighbors, were capable of maintaining security in the states bordering the Persian Gulf.

The Iranian president also criticized the current structure of the United Nations and said the world body was dominated by a few countries.

He added that the main target of establishing the UN was solving global problems, but this idea had not been realized to date as the UN had turned into an ineffective organization. The president also stressed the importance of the presence of Iran’s representative in the UN General Assembly.

Elsewhere in his remarks, he slammed the US for killing Osama bin Laden instead of trying him in order to shed more light on the September 11, 2001 attacks against New York and Washington.

On the country’s plans to curb unemployment, Ahmadinejad said the government intended to create 2.5 million new jobs over the course of the current Iranian calendar year — which started on March 21 –, noting that the plan was a feasible one given the fact that 1.6 million new jobs had been created during the last year.

The Iranian president further said that the volume of the country’s non-oil exports had hit USD 20,481 billion for the first half of the current Iranian calendar year. The figure, he added, would reach around USD 45 billion by the year-end.