Zimbabwe, Iran mull coalition against ‘bullies’

The leaders of Zimbabwe and Iran are looking to form a self-styled “coalition for peace” after receiving a joint tongue-lashing from US President George W Bush, officials said on Wednesday. The government in Harare confirmed President Robert Mugabe and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discussed the formation of such a coalition on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, where Bush delivered a harsh assessment of their regimes on Tuesday.

“The US and its allies are so blood thirsty they don’t want to see peace anywhere in the world,” deputy information minister Bright Matonga told AFP. “Our leaders are saying there is need for like-minded countries to come together,” he added.

The state-controlled Herald newspaper quoted Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the UN, Boniface Chidyausiku, as saying Mugabe and Ahmadinejad discussed “the need to come up with a coalition for peace in response to the aggression of global bullies,” Chidyausiku added.