General News
9/18/2009 4:14 PM ET
(RTTNews) -
The international community were unified on Friday in condemning Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's latest anti-Israel comments denying the Holocaust, with several countries issuing statements criticizing Ahmadinejad's latest outburst.
Earlier in the day, Ahmadinejad had used an annual pro-Palestine rally held in Iran to question the Holocaust. He said in a speech delivered at Tehran University on the occasion of the annual Quds Day that the Nazi Holocaust was a lie based on a myth.
Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem, and the ceremony was established in 1979 by the leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It is organized annually on the last Friday of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in support of the Palestinian people.
"The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false ... It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim," Ahmadinejad said. "Confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty."
The United States on Friday described Ahmadinejad's new comments as "ignorant and hateful," and said that such hateful comments would only serve in isolating Iran further from the international community.
"Regardless that we've heard that type of rhetoric before, obviously we condemn what he said, and I would point to what the president said in Cairo: denying the Holocaust is baseless, ignorant and hateful," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.
Meanwhile, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice described described Ahmadinejad's latest comments as "hateful, and added that U.S. President Barack Obama and Ahmadinejad was unlikely to "have a direct engagement" during the UN General Assembly in New York next week.
"With respect to the Iranian leader, I don't think there is much likelihood that there will an interaction," she said. "There is no obvious venue in which that would occur, and certainly we have no meetings or anything of the sort planned."
Britain was also quick in condemning Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust, with the country's Foreign Secretary David Miliband saying that Ahmadinejad's remarks were "abhorrent as well as ignorant".
"It is very important that the world community stands up against this tide of abuse. This outburst is not worthy of the leader of Iran," Miliband said. "The coincidence of today's comments with the start of Jewish New Year only adds to the insult."
Separately, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that Ahmadinejad was a "disgrace to his country," and added that this sheer "anti-Semitism demands our collective condemnation. We will continue to confront it decisively in the future."
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