Dispute over Iran’s nuclear program is political, not legal: Ahmadinejad

TEHRAN, Sept. 25 (MNA) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday said the argument over Iran’s nuclear program was a political rather than a legal matter and needs to be resolved politically, according to boston.com. ‘‘We are not expecting that a 33-year-old problem between America and Iran to be resolved in speedy discussions, but we do believe in dialogue,’’ Ahmadinejad told a group of editors and news executives after his arrival in New York for the annual UN General Assembly. He told the group that it was not too late for dialogue with the United States to resolve differences. Ahmadinejad also dismissed threats of military action against Iran’s nuclear program, insisting that his country’s project to enrich uranium is only for peaceful purposes and saying that Iran has no worries about a possible Israeli attack. He said Israelis ‘‘do not even enter the equation for Iran.’’ ‘‘Fundamentally, we do not take seriously threats of the Zionists,’’ said Ahmadinejad. ‘‘We believe the Zionists see themselves at a dead end and they want to find an adventure to get out of this dead end. While we are fully ready to defend ourselves, we do not take these threats seriously.’’ Ahmadinejad declared Israel has no place in the Middle East, saying that Iran has been around for thousands of years while Israel has existed only for the last 60 or so years. ‘‘They have no roots there in history,’’ he said. On other topics in his meeting with editors, Ahmadinejad said that Iran favors a negotiated settlement to the civil war in Syria. ‘‘We like and love both sides, and we see both sides as brothers,’’ he said. He referred to the conflict in Syria as ‘‘tribal’’ fighting and said that international ‘‘meddling from the outside has made the situation even harder.’’