Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused the United States of masterminding the release of thousands of cables by the Wikileaks website as part of a “psychological warfare” campaign.
Addressing a press conference in Tehran on Monday, Mr. Ahamdinejad said that the Americans had released the documents intentionally are part of a well organised plan. Asked to elaborate on leaked documents, he said: "Let me first correct you. The material was not leaked, but rather released in an organised way," Iran’s state-run Press TV reported.
A cable of April 20, 2008 released by Wikileaks cites Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz comparing Iran to the “head of a snake” which needed to be “cut off.” However, in his riposte, the Iranian
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President stressed that the documents will not affect Tehran’s external relations. "The US administration released them and based on them they pass judgment …. [The documents] have no legal value and will not have the political effect they seek," Press TV quoted him as saying. Mr. Ahmadinejad compared the Wikileaks disclosure to a "game," which, in his view is "not worth commenting upon and that no one would waste their time reviewing them."
In response to King Abdullah’s comments published by Wikileaks, a senior diplomatic source in the region told The Hindu , on conditions of anonymity, that Saudi Arabia’s position on the developments in the region including Iran has been evolving, especially since the Gaza war which ended in January 2009. He added that Saudi Arabia has “since been working together with countries in the region including Iran to defuse tensions in West Asia’s various trouble spots”. “To my mind the cable of April 20, 2008 is outdated and has been overtaken by events,” he observed.