Jerusalem - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni slammed Wednesday a speech to the United Nations by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and called for more international pressure to be applied to Tehran to force it to halt its nuclear programme.

The Iranian president, in his address to the United Nations on Tuesday, said that a "small, deceitful number of people called Zionists" were "playing with the dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people.

The Zionists, he said, have been "dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centres as well as the political decision-making centres of some European countries and the US in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner."

Ahmadinejad's remarks at the UN, Livni said in a strongly-worded statement, "demonstrates the absurd state of affairs of the organization whose founding motto was 'never again.'"

Livni, who has been charged by President Shimon Peres to form a new Israeli government, also said criticised Iran's request to be allowed to sit on the Security Council, saying it was akin to "allowing a criminal to be his own judge and jury."

"This is an unprecedented absurdity - for a state that is threatening the security of its neighbours and calling for the destruction of another state to be a member of the body whose goal is to maintain international peace and security," she said.

"Iran is the subject of Security Council sanctions because it pursues a nuclear weapons programme and supplies weapons to terrorist organizations, thereby violating numerous Security Council resolutions.

"Responsible countries cannot support Iran's membership in the body responsible for the implementation of those same sanctions," Livni went on.

"What is needed now," she said, "is to apply international pressure on Iran which would leave no doubt as to the price involved in ignoring the demands of the international community - rather than including Iran in the very body that is spearheading this action."

Israel regards Iran is its biggest existential threat because of Tehran nuclear programme, and because of repeated statements by Iranian leaders, including Ahmadinejad, that the Jewish state should be erased from the map. (dpa)