December 15, 2005

Iran's Ahmadinejad declares Holocaust is a myth

By Christian Oliver

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that the Holocaust was a myth, ramping up his rhetoric and triggering a fresh wave of international condemnation.

Last week Ahmadinejad first aired his doubts on the veracity of the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. His comments drew a rebuke from the U.N. Security Council.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (L) views military training exercises in the Persian Gulf December 14, 2005. Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that the Holocaust was a myth, triggering a fresh wave of international condemnation. (REUTERS/IRNA)

"They have fabricated a legend under the name 'Massacre of the Jews', and they hold it higher than God himself, religion itself and the prophets themselves," he told a crowd in the southeastern city of Zahedan on Wednesday.

The speech was broadcast live on state television.

European countries called the remarks unacceptable and said they could undermine plans for talks with Tehran on its controversial nuclear programme.

The United States condemned the comments as outrageous while Israel said they showed Iran's "rogue regime" was acting outside acceptable international norms.

Ahmadinejad, a former Revolutionary Guardsman who was elected president in June, said in October Israel must be "wiped off the map", provoking a diplomatic storm and stoking fears about Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Washington accuses Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is only for generating electricity.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the Holocaust remarks could weigh on European Union efforts to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme.

COMMENTS "OUTRAGEOUS"

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the comments underscored the importance of the international community working together to "keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons."

"All responsible leaders in the international community recognize how outrageous such comments are," he told reporters.

Ahmadinejad's comments, Israel's foreign ministry said, showed "a warped understanding".

"The combination of extremist ideology, a warped understanding of reality and nuclear weapons is a combination that no-one in the international community can accept," said spokesman Mark Regev.

A U.N. spokesman said Secretary-General Kofi Annan stood by his condemnation of Ahmadinejad's earlier remarks.

"He was shocked by these remarks and he continues to be shocked by these remarks every time they come out of the mouth of the Iranian president," said spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Britain's U.N. ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, current president of the U.N. Security Council, said he did not expect the council to address the issue because "we made our views absolutely clear in the past".

CRITICAL STATEMENT

Iran's hardline press largely rallied round the president's first Holocaust remarks but the Islamic Iran Participation Front, Iran's leading reformist party, printed a critical statement in the liberal Sharq daily on Wednesday.

"Provocation...and starting this sort of talk, which benefits neither Iranians nor oppressed Palestinians, will only increase consensus on supporting the (Israeli) regime and will unify the approach against Iran," it said.

Commentators have said that Ahmadinejad sees himself as a popular, pan-Islamic leader in the mould of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Tehran-based political analyst Mahmoud Alinejad said the president perhaps feels his speeches were winning Iran diplomatic clout.

"There is a perception, based on past experience that only when Iran threatens and pushes does the West back off," he said.

Ahmadinejad accused the Israeli government and its allies of hypocrisy and reiterated his view that Israel should be moved from "dear Palestine" to Europe, America or Canada.

"If your civilisation consists of unjust acts, oppression and poverty for the majority of the globe to provide your own people welfare, then we shout at the top of our voices that we hate your frail civilisation," he added.

This was greeted by rapturous cries of "God is the Greatest" from the crowd.

(Additional reporting Matt Spetalnick in Jerusalem, Paul Hughes in Tehran, Sebastian Alison in Brussels, Markus Krah in Berlin and Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations)

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