DUSHANBE. June 10. “Asia-Plus” -- Iran never recognized and will not recognize any sanctions, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday during his meeting with the Tajik intelligentsia in Dushanbe.

“Some countries are putting various sanctions against Iran under the pretence that Iran can obtain nuclear weapon. However, these sanctions do not worth a dime for the Iranian people. People of Iran treat these documents as used handkerchief,” he said.

He stressed that Western countries are able to strike on Iran. “Countries that accuse Iran of its intention to create a nuclear weapon were the first ones to do that and even used this weapon against other people,” he stressed.

He said that earlier Western countries used to accuse Iraq of similar “sins”. “They invaded this country under the pretence that Iraq has weapon of mass destruction. As a result, they have destroyed more than 1 million 300.000 innocent people and they did not find any weapon of mass destruction there,” he said.

Ahmadinejad stressed that Iranian nation has too high and deep culture to direct its efforts to the creation of weapon of mass destruction.

The UN imposed a new round of sanctions on Iran in an attempt to force it to comply with international demands over its nuclear programme – even though a defiant Tehran insisted punitive measures will change nothing. The US, which spent five months forging the package, urged Iran to "choose a wiser course" after security council resolution 1929 was passed by 12 votes today. Brazil and Turkey, which brokered a nuclear fuel swap deal with Iran last month but which was effectively dismissed by the west, voted against. Lebanon abstained. The failure to achieve unanimity is widely seen as having weakened the resolution, BBC reports.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Dushanbe to take part in the high-level international conference on the mid-term overview of the implementation of the International Decade for Action “Water for Life” for 2005-2015.

According to the Iranian embassy in Tajikistan, today Ahmadinejad will depart to Shanghai to take part in EXPO-2010 international exhibition.

Earlier the Iranian embassy reported that Ahmadinejad was planning to visit Tashkent to take part in regular summit of heads of SCO member states.