Iran brushes aside Bush warning

Iran on Tuesday brushed aside US President George W. Bush's warning over "threats to US troops" in his State of the Union speech, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"Unfortunately we have been hearing Bush's baseless and unimportant accusations about Iran for the past seven years," foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini was quoted as saying.

"We advise the US president for the remaining time (of his tenure)... to deal with the real worries of his people harmed by the US economic stagnation... and the severe nervous breakdown the (US) military men dispirited in the occupation of Iraq."

In his speech Monday, Bush warned that Washington will "confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf."

His message echoed US warnings over an early January face-off between US and Iranian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and came as Washington pushed for new UN sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear programme. AFP