  
| 
| ||||||||||||
Iranian president inflames tensions with IsraelPalestinians facing a 'holocaust,' Ahmadinejad says
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran's president, who last October said Israel "must be wiped off the map," stoked tensions with the Jewish state Friday saying, "the Zionist regime is a dying tree, and soon its branches will be broken down." Despite that, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech that Israel remains a threat to Islamic countries. "The existence of the Zionist regime is tantamount to an imposition of an unending and unrestrained threat so that none of the nations and Islamic countries of the region and beyond can feel secure from its threat," Reuters News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying in Friday's speech. The Iranian president's remarks came as Western nations pressured Tehran to halt its uranium enrichment program, something the United States, Israel and others say can lead to the production of nuclear weapons. Iran says the nuclear program is only for power production, but Israel's chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, said Wednesday it could lead to an Iranian nuclear weapon by the end of the decade, according to an Associated Press report. In his October speech, Ahmadinejad said the "new wave of confrontations generated in Palestine and the growing turmoil in the Islamic world would in no time wipe Israel away," according to paraphrased statements reported by Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency. (Full story) In December, Ahmadinejad continued the verbal assault against Israel, calling the Holocaust a "myth." (Full story) "They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets," Ahmadinejad said in the December speech. "If you have burned the Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel?" Friday he again questioned the killing of millions of Jews during World War II. "If such a tragedy were true," said Ahmadinejad, "why with force, by killing, does it have to be compensated?" Ahmadinejad on Friday was addressing a room full of representatives from Middle Eastern and some African nations for a gathering billed as a conference "on Jerusalem and support for the rights of the Palestinian people." He described the Holocaust -- in which 6 million Jews and millions of others were killed by the Nazis -- as a story that "many countries believe." Ahmadinejad said Palestinians are being subjected to a "holocaust." "And is this holocaust worse than or less bad than the holocaust you claim that has taken place? There is no doubt in the holocaust that exists in Palestine at the moment, and has been existing for the last 60 years." U.S. and European leaders have pointed to Ahmadinejad's comments on the Holocaust and his calls for the destruction of Israel as signs that Iran must be prevented from securing nuclear weapons. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack echoed those concerns Friday, calling Ahmadinejad's most-recent remarks "more reprehensible rhetoric." "This is the kind of rhetoric I think that has only added to the fears and concerns of the international community as it relates to Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon," McCormack told reporters in Washington. "If you think about it, you have the elected head of state calling for the annihilation of another state. That is not only, as I said, reprehensible, but a source of grave concern for the entire international community." The U.N. Security Council has given Iran until the end of April to suspend uranium enrichment. On Friday, Ahmadinejad slammed the United States and other countries as "against the advancement of technology and science" in Iran. "The governments who use force become obstacles to the progress of other countries. They do not allow the countries in the region to follow the path of progress and advancement," Ahmadinejad complained. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei met with Iranian officials Thursday. Afterward, he said Tehran had not agreed to international demands that it halt uranium enrichment, but he also said the issue was not "urgent." (Full story) Copyright 2006 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report. 
|
| ||||||||||||
| © 2007 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. Site Map. |
 |
|
External sites open in new window; not endorsed by CNN.com
Pay service with live and archived video. 
