US, France walk out during Ahmadinejad's UN speech

Several delegations to the UN General Assembly, including the United States and France, walked out of the annual meeting on Wednesday during a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Several delegations to the UN General Assembly, including the United States and France, walked out of the annual meeting on Wednesday during a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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"It is disappointing that Mr Ahmadinejad has once again chosen to espouse hateful, offensive and anti-Semitic rhetoric," Mark Kornblau, spokesman to the US mission to the United Nations, said in a statement.

In his address, Ahmadinejad again railed against Israel without mentioning the country by name, referring only to the "Zionist regime."

"It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks, and establish a new form of slavery, and harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the US, to attain its racist ambitions," he said.