Tuesday, September 19 2006 10:57 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

United Nations: Presidents George W. Bush of the United States and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran take their nuclear dispute to the world stage on today (Sept 19, 2006) when both give speeches to the UN General Assembly.

Bush and Ahmadinejad will be among keynote speakers on the first day of debate by global leaders at the General Assembly the last for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who stands down at the end of the year. The dispute over whether Iran is seeking nuclear weapons has become one of the main sources of international tension in recent months, along with the wars in Lebanon and Iraq and the Darfur conflict in Sudan.

Annan will open the debate with his final speech at the general assembly. The US president will be one of the first speakers. He is expected to use his speech to defend the US push for sanctions against Iran over its nuclear weapons. Bush was also expected to defend US action in Iraq and hail the US administration's efforts to spread democracy in the Middle East as an antidote to the resentments that fuel terrorism.

The Iranian leader, who has repeatedly condemned US attempts to halt his country's nuclear programme, will be one of the final speakers on the first day.

Speaking in Caracas before leaving for New York, Ahmadinejad on Monday again rejected international pressure to suspend unranium enrichment a key stage in the production of a nuclear bomb.

Talks are continuing, and I see no reason to speed them up," he told a press conference.

"Iran's nuclear programme is very clear and very transparent," the president said.

"We have always said that we are willing to negotiate with any country," he said.

If nuclear energy is something good then everyone should have it, and if it is bad then nobody should have it," he said at the end of his two-day visit.

Ahmadinejad accused Western powers of wanting to control nuclear technology and when another country needs it, they sell it at a high price.

According to diplomats, however, there are signs that Iran is ready to suspend its programme, at least temporarily.

Efforts to counter Iran's programme will be discussed later in the day when the foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States hold a working dinner on the nuclear dispute.

Darfur is another crisis casting a shadow over the UN debate, mainly because of Sudan's refusal to agree to a UN peacekeeping force being allowed into the western region where up to 300,000 people are said to have died in the past three years.

President Jacques Chirac of France, another of the key speakers Tuesday, raised his concerns about 'the threat of a humanitarian catastrophe' in Darfur during a working dinner Monday night with the UN chief, said his spokesman.

Chirac said that in his speech to the UN General Assembly he would appeal for the urgent deployment of a UN force to prevent this humanitarian catastrophe.

The Sudan government has expressed opposition to a UN force but has indicated it would support extending the mandate of an African Union force already in Darfur.

Darfur is to be discussed at a ministerial meeting Wednesday on the sidelines of the UN gathering.

Efforts to get Middle East peace efforts back on track are also to be discussed this week at the UN Security Council and in bilateral meetings on the sidelines.