AFP: Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel on Thursday sharply denounced hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s suggestion that Israel be moved to Austria or Germany. WASHINGTON, Dec 8 (AFP) – Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel on Thursday sharply denounced hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s suggestion that Israel be moved to Austria or Germany.
Schuessel, speaking to reporters after meeting here with US President George W. Bush, called the remarks “an outrageous gaffe, which I want to repudiate in the sharpest manner.”
The chancellor also said that the resettlement of Jews was “no solution” to the Middle East conflict.
Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik also called the Iranian leader’s remarks “absolutely unacceptable.”
“No doubt can be cast on the right of Israel to exist,” she said in a statement released late Thursday in Vienna.
Ahmadinejad, who in October said arch-enemy Israel “must be wiped off the map”, said that if Germany and Austria believed Jews were massacred during World War II, a state of Israel should be established on their soil.
“You believe the Jews were oppressed, why should the Palestinian Muslims have to pay the price?” he asked in an interview with Iranian state television’s Arabic-language satellite channel, Al-Alam.
“You oppressed them, so give a part of Europe to the Zionist regime so they can establish any government they want. We would support it,” he said, according to a transcript of his original Farsi-language comments given to AFP.
“So, Germany and Austria, come and give one, two or any number of your provinces to the Zionist regime so they can create a country there … and the problem will be solved at its root,” he said.
