Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hinted yesterday that Iran would consider withdrawing from the UN's nuclear watchdog if membership produced no benefit.

"What has more than 30 years of membership in the agency given us?" he asked rhetorically at a press conference.

"Working in the framework of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the agency is our concrete policy," he added. "(But) if we see that they are violating our rights, or they don't want to accept (our rights), well, we will revise."

The UN body, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has accused Iran of failing to answer all questions about its nuclear programme and reported the country to the Security Council for non-compliance with its demands.

The Security Council has given Iran until Friday to suspend enrichment of uranium, a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors material for nuclear warheads. Iran has rejected the demand, arguing it is entitled to the peaceful use of enrichment as a signatory to the NPT.

In wide-ranging remarks, Ahmadinejad said yesterday that Israel was an artificial state that could not continue to exist.

"Some 60 years has passed since the end of World War II, why should the people of Germany and Palestine pay now for a war in which the current generation was not involved," Ahmadinejad told a press conference.

"We say that this fake regime (Israel) cannot not logically continue to live," he said.

The Iranian president has long campaigned against Israel, saying last October that the Jewish state should be "wiped off the map." He has said Europe should find a home for Israelis, who should not live on Palestinian land.

"Open the doors (of Europe) and let the Jews go back to their own countries," the president said yesterday.

Source: China Daily