Khamenei urges resistance to western pressure : By Gareth Smyth In Tehran

As Iranians on Wednesday marked Noruz, the first day of the Iranian new year, and the UN Security Council debated further economic sanctions on its nuclear programme, Iran’s leadership gave Noruz messages rallying national resistance against western pressure. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, said the new year, 1386 in the Iranian calendar, would see Iran overcome attempts by enemies to “sow discord …[by] creating economic problems to stop the country’s progress”. “Challenges are a necessity of life,” he said. “Every live being has to pay a price for being alive in order to secure its objectives.” Evoking historical memories of British and Russian pressure on Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei said “bullying and corrupt” powers had thwarted its progress for “close to 200 years”. The United Nations Security Council was meeting in New York Wednesday to start discussion of a draft resolution drawn up last week that would expand the sanctions regime imposed on Iran in December after its failure to meet a UN deadline to end uranium enrichment. In an equally nationalist broadcast, president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad - who is expected to address the Security Council before it votes on the new resolution - said Iran had throughout history been “the founder of most sciences, industries and schools of thought”. Defending his government’s record, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad said offers of foreign investment had doubled in the past year, and that non-oil exports had grown by 39 percent to a record $15bn. Tehran’s foreign policy had sought good relations with other countries, he said, while promoting Iran’s rights, including the acquisition of nuclear technology. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad also drew Iranians’ attention to ‘300’, the recently released Hollywood movie portraying a group of Spartan warriors who died trying to hold off a far larger Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae in Greece in 480BC. Without naming the film, the president said it was part of a “psychological war” against Iran. “Today they are trying to tamper with history by … making Iran’s image look savage,” he said. The movie, which portrays Persians as effeminate dark-skinned orientals with pierced noses, has sparked bitter criticism from Iranians at home and abroad. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad linked the film to the west’s “misuse of the organisations they have themselves created … to prevent our nation’s development”, evoking the UN Security Council debate over extending sanctions against Iran.