New York  - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended his nation's right to possess civilian nuclear technology and used the opportunity on Tuesday in the UN General Assembly to denounce nuclear powers that want to cancel that right.

"These are the same powers that produce new generations of lethal nuclear arms and possess stockpiles of nuclear weapons that no international organizations is monitoring," he told the 192-nation assembly.

New York - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived Monday at the United Nations in New York in the face of protests, amid the US presidential election fray.

Jewish-American groups held a rally Monday morning outside UN headquarters in New York and planned another major demonstration on Tuesday, when Ahmadinejad is to give his formal address to the General Assembly.

The rally was catapulted into the US political limelight last week after it emerged that Sarah Palin, vice presidential running mate of Republican presidential nominee John McCain, was scheduled to speak.

Tehran- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday continued his tirades against Israel by saying that "all crimes and criminals in history" were summarized in the Israeli regime.

"The Zionist (Israeli) regime's spirit is the summation of all ugliness in the world and the continuation of its existence is based on aggression and occupation," Mehr news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

"We see in this regime the summation of all crimes and criminals in history," he added.

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that Iran had nothing against Israeli Jews but called on them to return to their "countries of origin."

"Although we distinguish between the people (Jews living in Israel) and the Zionist (Israeli) regime, but we neither acknowledge an Israeli government nor a nation," Ahmadinejad said in a press conference in Tehran.

Tehran  - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday criticized European Union policies in the Caucasus crisis.

"The Europeans should have studied more carefully and made a better assessment of the regional situation and eventually not allowed the crisis to happen at all," Ahmadinejad said at a press conference in Tehran, referring to Europe's support for Georgia's NATO membership.

Referring to Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad said that whenever NATO was involved, "The situation got worse and tensions increased."

Tehran  - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday declared his readiness to have a televised debate with the two US presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain.

"I have no intention to officially meet American officials in New York, but I am ready for a televised debate with the two US presidential candidates at the UN," Ahmadinejad said at a press conference in Tehran.

"I had the same intention with [President George W] Bush," he said, referring to his two requests for such an encounter. They were rejected by the White House as propaganda.