President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that despite the tough sanctions imposed on Iran during past years, the Islamic Republic was able to successfully continue its march toward development in key sectors, including industry and mining.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the National Day of Industries and Mines on Saturday, he referred to the western media propaganda during and after the June 12 presidential elections, IRNA reported.
Ahmadinejad garnered 24.5 million or 62.6 percent of the 39.16 million votes cast.
Western powers did their utmost to aggrandize problems in the crucial vote on a worldwide scale to divert public opinion from the devastating financial crisis crippling their economies, he said.
“To overcome their own economic crisis, the western countries pumped huge sums into the market and tried to divert world public opinion from the issue by making strong speeches and creating diseases such as swine flu to find a way out of the current mess“.
The president underlined the need to remove the resistance against banking reform “with the help of industrialists“.
Ahmadinejad praised the banking sector employees and said “They should not consider themselves as competitors of economic bodies but as servants of the nation contributing to the circulation of money and economic policies“.
On nuclear issue, the president said the enemies abuse the peaceful nuclear program to achieve their narrow agenda and prevent Iran from advancing.
“Our nation seeks peace and stability in the world and will do its best to achieve these lofty goals“.
Western powers have accused the Islamic Republic of trying to acquire nuclear weapons under the guise of its civilian nuclear program.
Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), insists that its nuclear activities are geared to produce energy.

An Iraqi official expressed gratitude to Iran’s envoy in Baghdad for Iran’s participation in civil and developmental projects in Kurdistan.
Governor of the Iraqi Kurdish city of Suleymaniyeh, Dana Majeed, in a meeting with Kazemi Qomi lauded Iranian companies for building bridges, railways and tunnels.
“Iranians have proved their mettle and are trustworthy among the local officials,“ Majeed added, noting that Iranians have been invited to take part in some other projects in the region.
“Iraqis, and especially Kurds, will not forget what the Islamic Republic has done for them. They consider themselves indebted to the Iranians,“ IRIB quoted the official as saying.
On Wednesday, Nechervan Barzani, another senior Iraqi Kurdish official, said in a statement that Iranian firms have been invited to invest in northern Iraq.
Iraq is the second largest importer of Iran’s non-oil goods including water coolers, carpets, construction material and office furniture. In its reconstruction phase Iraq has offered plenty of opportunities for Iranian investment, he observed.
Iran has earmarked a billion dollars for reconstruction projects in the neighboring Arab country.

Pakistani helicopter gunships attacked Taliban militants on Saturday in a northwestern region where a military helicopter crashed the previous day killing 26 soldiers on board, a government official said.
Fighting has intensified sharply in northwest Pakistan over the past two months since the army went on the offensive to push back an expanding insurgency that raised fears for the stability of the nuclear-armed US ally, Reuters reported.
The helicopter crashed on Friday because of a technical fault about 20 km (12 miles) from the city of Peshawar on the mountainous border of the Orakzai and Khyber ethnic Pashtun tribal regions, the military said.
On Saturday, army helicopters attacked a militant position in the same area, a government official said.
“They struck a militant bunker on a peak. We went there after the attack and found 10 bodies lying there,“ Khaista Rehman, a government official based in Kallay, the main town in the Orakzai region, told Reuters.
All of the bodies from the crashed helicopter had been recovered, the military said. Soldiers have been fighting Taliban militants in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, since early May and have stepped up pressure on Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, in his South Waziristan stronghold near the Afghan border.
Pakistan’s civilian government has said it is determined to fight militancy and defeat Mehsud.
US officials have welcomed the offensive after earlier voicing fears about Pakistan’s stability and the safety of its nuclear arsenal.

Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, is investigating a complaint that Press TV has breached its duty to be accurate and impartial.
The move came after a number of its opponents accused the Iranian satellite TV of broadcasting biased news over the recent post-election unrests in Iran, Timesonline reported.
Press TV, funded by the Iranian government, is broadcasting the 24-hour news into homes across Britain and worldwide.
Nick Ferrari, a leading British radio presenter, quit his show on the station in protest at what he called “unfair stance of the channel“ regarding the post-election developments.
Ferrari, who hosts LBC’s weekday breakfast show, claimed that Press TV’s news coverage had been “reasonably fair“ until the election--but not any longer. “I imagine they’ve been told what to do, and I can’t reconcile that with working there,“ he said.
Press TV also employs Cherie Blair’s sister Lauren Booth, the MPs Derek Conway and George Galloway, and the journalists Andrew Gilligan and Yvonne Ridley.
Booth told The Times that her weekly program, Remember the Children of Palestine, was “too important for me not to make it“.
Gilligan, Ridley and Galloway said that their shows were not subject to political interference, and they would quit if they were.
The Times says Press TV failed to return telephone calls in this regard.
Press TV says it heeds the often neglected voices and perspectives of a great portion of the world and embraces and builds bridges of cultural understanding.
It also aims to bring light to untold and overlooked stories of individuals who have experienced the vitality and versatility of political and cultural divides firsthand.

North Korea test-fired seven missiles off its east coast Saturday, South Korean officials said, in an act of defiance apparently timed for the US Independence Day holiday.
The launches further fuelled regional tensions after the communist state’s nuclear test in May, which coincided with the US Memorial Day holiday, AFP reorted.
They came as Washington seeks support for tough enforcement of United Nations sanctions aimed at shutting down the North’s nuclear and missile programs.
The ballistic missiles--which the North is banned from firing under UN resolutions--were launched between 8 am (2300 GMT Friday) and 5.40 pm into the Sea of Japan (East Sea), Seoul military officials said.
It was the biggest salvo of ballistic weaponry since the North fired a long-range Taepodong-2 and six smaller missiles on US Independence Day in 2006.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said they had a range of between 400 and 500 km (250-312 miles) but declined to say what type they were. Yonhap news agency said they were either Scuds, or Rodong-1 missiles whose maximum range of 1,300 km had been shortened.
The North on Thursday test-fired four short-range missiles with a range of 120 km into the Sea of Japan.
The latest launches were seen as more provocative since the missiles could potentially reach most of South Korea, and possibly parts of Japan.
Strong US Alliance
“The military, on the basis of a strong joint defense alliance with the United States, is fully prepared to fend off any threats or provocations by the North,“ Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The foreign ministry said the missiles were fired from a base at Kitdaeryong near the eastern port of Wonsan.
It said the “provocative act... clearly violates“ three UN Security Council resolutions, including the latest one on June 12 which toughened weapons-related sanctions on the North in response to its May 25 nuclear test.