In Strasbourg, British Minister for Europe Douglas Alexander said, The comments are wholly unacceptable and we condemn them unreservedly. They have no place in civilised political debate. Britain currently holds the EUs rotating presidency.
Irans hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday the Holocaust was a “myth” that Europeans had used to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world, and called for Jews to be moved from the Middle East to Europe, the United States, Canada, or Alaska.
Speaking at a gathering in the southern Iranian town of Zahedan (Sistan va Baluchestan Province), Ahmadinejad said, “Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets.
The Europeans say that during the Second World War six million Jews were killed, and they are determined in their claims to the point that even when scientists question them they deal with such scientists and jail and punish them, he added.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the Holocaust remarks could weigh on European Union efforts to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.
The recent remarks by the Iranian president … are certainly shocking and unacceptable, he told reporters. I cannot deny that they may weigh on our bilateral relations and naturally also on the chances for the negotiations on [Iran’s”> so-called nuclear dossier.
Steinmeier said the Iranian charge d’affaires in Berlin had been summoned and Germany had made its disapproval unmistakably clear.
European Commission spokeswoman Emma Udwin also described the remarks as completely unacceptable. Such interventions will do nothing to rebuild confidence in Iran’s intentions, she said.
