AFP: The German government on Friday summoned the Iranian charge d’affairs in Berlin to express its opposition to a planned conference on the Holocaust in Tehran next week.
BERLIN, Dec 8, 2006 (AFP) – The German government on Friday summoned the Iranian charge d’affairs in Berlin to express its opposition to a planned conference on the Holocaust in Tehran next week.
A foreign ministry spokesman, Jens Ploetner, told reporters that Germany had made clear that as the country responsible for the Nazis’ crimes it found any statements questioning Israel’s right to exist or the fact of the Holocaust to be “shocking” and “unacceptable”.
“We condemn any attempt, in the past or in the future, to give a forum to those who relativise or question the Holocaust,” he told a regular government news conference.
Germany “bears a unique responsibility toward the victims of the Nazis, in particular the victims of the Holocaust,” he added.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi said this week the staging of the conference on December 11-12 was a response to the lack of answers to questions posed over the Holocaust by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
He declined to give the names of the 67 international “scholars” he said would be attending over fears their home countries would ban them from travelling to Tehran.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said this week that he would deplore any conference that sought to cast doubt on the reality of the Holocaust.
