By Xinhua,
Tehran : Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that his country has clear strategies, proposals and plans for fair and appropriate distribution of food worldwide, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Ahmadinejad made the remarks in a speech before leaving for Rome, Italy to attend a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)-sponsored UN food summit, said IRNA.
“As an influential country in economic and agriculture terms, Iran has clear-cut strategies, proposals and plans for fair and appropriate production and distribution of foodstuff worldwide and it can have a determining role in management of affairs in the globe today,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.
He revealed that he would have meetings with a number of world leaders on the sideline of the FAO summit, without specifying whom he will meet.
Participants at the three-day summit beginning on Tuesday will discuss short-term solutions as well as new strategies to deal with the effects of global warming, growing demand for biofuels and a crumbling agriculture sector in much of the developing world.
The summit is the first global response to the recent cycle of food prices hike.
Ahmadinejad has visited UN headquarters in New York three times for the UN General Assembly, but visits by the hardline Iranian president to a Western country are extremely rare.
Italian activists, leftist politicians and Jewish groups have protested against Ahmadinejad’s presence at the summit, saying it was a disgrace that someone who has repeatedly predicted Israel will disappear was invited.