Iranian leader condemned for Holocaust remarks

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

BERLIN - Germany, Russia and Switzerland joined the European Union today in a chorus of condemnation of the Iranian president for suggesting the Holocaust might not have taken place and that Israel should be moved to Europe.

The remarks by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a news conference in the Saudia Arabian city of Mecca on Thursday, follow his call in October for Israel to be "wiped off the map", which also sparked broad international criticism.

The German Foreign Ministry said it had summoned Iran's ambassador to protest, and ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger told a news conference this was being done to show how seriously Berlin was taking the comments.

"When one summons an ambassador, then you signal the start of something in diplomacy, that there are grounds for serious discussion," Jaeger told reporters.

Iran's official news agency IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying of the Nazi Holocaust "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces..."

"Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true, our question for the Europeans is: is the killing of innocent Jewish people by Hitler the reason for their support to the occupiers of Jerusalem?" he said.

"If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe - like in Germany, Austria or other countries - to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe."

Britain, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency and has played a key role in European attempts to persuade Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions, said such comments had "no place in civilized political debate".

TWO STATES SIDE BY SIDE

"Iran is unique in opposing a resolution to the Arab-Israel dispute based on the principle of two states living side by side in peace and security," Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a presidency statement.

"I urge all states to support that vision, and Iran to cease its support to groups who want to undermine it through violence," Straw said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said of Ahmadinejad's comments: "It is difficult to comment on such unacceptable remarks."

"There are well known historical facts concerning World War Two, including the Holocaust. These facts cannot be revised and this should be understood by everyone," it said in a statement.

Neutral Switzerland - which has represented the United States' interests in Iran since the year after the 1979 Islamic revolution - also condemned the remarks.

"The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs firmly condemns the remarks ... with regard to the State of Israel," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued in the capital Berne.

"The terms used by the Iranian President are unacceptable ... none of the member states of the United Nations is entitled to express positions aiming at denying the existence of another member state of the United Nations," it added.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the United States have also issued strong condemnations of the Iranian remarks.

German Jewish leaders called for political sanctions against the Islamic republic over Ahmadinejad's remarks. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany.

Paul Spiegel, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a statement: "Political instruments ranging from political and economic sanctions to expulsion from the United Nations must finally be seriously looked at and used."

Michel Friedman, chairman of the German chapter of the international Jewish organization Keren Hayesod, was equally determined. "I call on the government ... to sever diplomatic ties with Iran," Friedman told N24 news television.

Ahmadinejad's remarks were reminiscent of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's proposal in 1990 - on the eve of a massive exodus of Soviet Jews - that the Jews be given "an alternative homeland in the Baltic Republics, Alaska, Alsace-Lorraine or on the Volga River. These are Jewish areas, not Palestine".

"By what right are Jews emigrating from their countries to Palestine? If the Jews are being persecuted in their countries this does not give them the right to persecute other people, namely the Palestinians," he told an Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Nicosia.

- REUTERS