Iran’s Ahmadinejad joins Gaza crisis summit in Qatar

AFP: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left for Qatar on Friday to take part in a regional summit on the Gaza crisis that was also to be attended by a string of other Israeli foes including Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, the official IRNA news agency reported.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left for Qatar on Friday to take part in a regional summit on the Gaza crisis that was also to be attended by a string of other Israeli foes including Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad was accompanied by his close aide Esfandiar Rahim Mashai and Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, IRNA said.

Qatar pressed ahead with the planned summit over the objections of regional heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia as well as the Palestinian leadership of president Mahmud Abbas.

Iran is a staunch supporter of the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, and does not recognise its archfoe Israel.

Ahmadinejad, who has previously predicted that Israel is doomed to be "wiped off the map", on Thursday accused some Arab and Islamic states of complicity in an Israeli "genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza.