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Iran leader's words 'sickening'
EUROPEAN leaders have condemned statements by the Iranian President calling for Israel to be destroyed.Speaking in the Iranian capital Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Israel should be "wiped off the map", the official IRNA news agency reported. Support for the Palestinian cause is a central pillar of the Islamic Republic which officially refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist. "Israel must be wiped off the map," Ahmadinejad told a conference called "The World without Zionism", attended by some 3,000 conservative students who chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America". Under reformist President Mohammad Khatami, whose eight-year tenure ended earlier this year, Iran had shown signs of easing its implacable hostility towards Israel. Officials said Tehran might not object to a two-state solution if that was what the Palestinians wanted. But Ahmadinejad, a former member of the hardline Revolutionary Guards and traditional religious conservative, said there could be no let-up in its hostility to Israel. "The Islamic world will not let its historic enemy live in its heartland," he said. White House Spokesman Scott McClellan said Washington took such remarks seriously. "It underscores the concerns we have about Iran's nuclear intentions," he said. The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear arms, but Tehran says it needs atomic fuel only for power stations. Iran has developed ballistic missiles able to hit Israel. France, Spain, Britain and Canada condemned the President's remarks and the European trio said their foreign ministries would summon Iranian envoys and demand an explanation. "(These) comments are deeply disturbing and sickening," a British Foreign Office spokesman said. "We have seen in Israel today the horrible reality of the violence he is praising," he said, referring to a Palestinian suicide bombing in the Israeli town of Hadera that killed five people and wounded 30. "Saying Iran wants to wipe Israel from the map will only heighten concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions ... We will be protesting to the Iranian charge d'affaires," he said. "If these (reported) comments are true, they are unacceptable. I condemn them with the greatest firmness," French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy said. "...Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos has expressed his rejection in the most emphatic terms and has decided to urgently call in the Iranian ambassador to ask him for an explanation," the Spanish foreign ministry said. Tehran denies accusations it trains and arms Palestinian militant groups, saying it offers only moral support. Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew said: "We cannot tolerate comments of such hatred, such anti-Semitism, such intolerance. And these comments are all the more troubling given that we know of Iran's nuclear ambitions." Posted by: tipper 2005-10-27 |
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