AP: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s hard-line president who has said the Holocaust was a myth, now has charged that European countries sought to complete the genocide by establishing a Jewish state in the midst of Muslim countries. By NASSER KARIMI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s hard-line president who has said the Holocaust was a myth, now has charged that European countries sought to complete the genocide by establishing a Jewish state in the midst of Muslim countries.
“Don’t you think that continuation of genocide by expelling Jews from Europe was one of their aims in creating a regime of occupiers of Al-Quds (Jerusalem)?” the official Islamic Republic News agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Sunday. “Isn’t that an important question?”
Ahmadinejad said Europeans had decided to create a “Jewish camp” as the best means for ridding the continent of Jews. He said the camp, Israel, now enjoyed support from the United States and Europe in the slaughter of Muslims.
In October, Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”
Last month, Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany killed six million Jews, was a myth. After global outrage over the comments, he said that Europeans, if they insist the Holocaust occurred, should cede some of their territory for a Jewish state.
He said anti-Semitism had a long history in Europe, while Jews had lived peacefully among Muslims for centuries.
His remarks have been condemned by the White House, Israel, Germany, France and the European Commission, among others. Germany has said the remarks would affect negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
European negotiators are pushing Iran to move its uranium enrichment facilities to Russia in a compromise solution to a dispute with the United States, which wants to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons. Talks are set to continue this month.
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said the Russian proposal that the two nations enrich uranium in Russian territory could not ignore Iran’s right to carry out enrichment at home.
“It’s not logical for a country to put the fate of its nation at the disposal of another country even if it’s a friend. You can meet part of your fuel needs from abroad,” Larijani said on state-run television late Sunday.
“History and experience show that if you don’t have technology, you will damage your independence,” he said.
Larijani also warned of a “crushing” response if its nuclear and military facilities were attacked by the U.S. or Israel.
“If there is any truth in such talks, Israel will suffer greatly. It’s a very small country within our range,” he said.
Iran said Sunday it has produced equipment for separating uranium from its ore, a fresh development in Tehran’s drive to control the nuclear-fuel cycle, state television reported Sunday.
The broadcast claimed the “settler-mixer” was a highly effective way to produce uranium, quoting Amir Hossein Farhadi, a researcher for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.
“Foreign countries were not ready to sell it to Iran since it could be applicable in the cycle,” Farhadi said.
Iran claims the program is solely for generating electricity.
The U.S. has pushed for Iran to be taken before the United Nations Security Council, where it could face economic sanctions over the dispute.
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Associated Press writer Ali Akbar Dareini contributed to this report.
