TEHRAN, Feb 11: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned on Saturday the country could quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) if forced by the West to limit its disputed nuclear programme.

In a strongly worded speech to huge crowds marking the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, the outspoken hardline president also reiterated his view that Nazi Germany’s mass killing of Jews was a “myth” and argued that Palestinians and Iraqis were suffering from “the real Holocaust”.

“Until now, the Islamic republic’s policy was to use nuclear technology for peaceful ends,” the president said.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has continued its nuclear drive within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the NPT, but if we see that you want to deprive us of our right using these regulations, know that the people will revise their policy in this regard,” he said in a thinly-veiled warning.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians were out under Tehran’s winter sunshine, answering a call from Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to put on a show of force in the face of mounting international pressure.

“The Iranian people will never renounce their nuclear rights,” Ahmadinejad vowed, drawing deafening chants from the crowd of “We will not give in!”

“Your threats will not get you anywhere. Don’t push us to the limit. Don’t make us change our policy,” said Mr Ahmadinejad, raising the threat that Iran could follow the course of North Korea by abandoning the NPT.

The NPT is the cornerstone of the global battle against the spread of nuclear weapons, prohibiting the development of the bomb and subjecting its signatories to IAEA inspections.

But the president said the West “believes it can cheat us by hiding its face behind international institutions like the IAEA and Security Council”, but added “you have left these institutions and the NPT with no credibility”.

Mr Ahmadinejad, who since his shock election win last June has steered Iran on a collision course with the West, also used the speech to lash out at Israel.

“Questioning the myth of the Holocaust and the creation of the phoney Zionist regime has haunted them,” said the president.

“For more than 60 years, this myth has enabled the Zionists to blackmail the Western countries, justify the killing of women and children and make them refugees in occupied land,” he said.

“The real Holocaust is happening today in Palestine and Iraq. If you are looking for the real Holocaust, look at the poor Iraqi people.”

He also lashed out against the publication in Western newspapers of caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Several European embassies in Tehran have been attacked by pro-regime protestors over the past week.

“How come insulting the prophet is free, but investigating the Holocaust is banned?” asked the president.

“We suggested to them that we will send an unbiased group to look at your documents in Europe and inform the nation, but you will not even allow your own scholars to investigate the Holocaust,” Mr Ahmadinejad said.

“This is the same way as you dealt with things in the dark ages.”

Mr Ahmadinejad saluted the victory in last month’s Palestinian legislative election of the militant group Hamas, a close ally of Iran.

“The Zionists are on the verge of being destroyed; the time of occupation is coming to an end, so put an end to your slavery of Zionism,” he said.

“If you want a solution to the Palestinian issue, let them say what they want to say in a referendum, the result of which you have seen so far,” he said. — AFP