The Presidency of the European Union is deeply concerned about the Conference on the Holocaust, which was held in Tehran on 11-12 December 2006, a statement by the European Unions Presidency said on Tuesday. Finland currently holds the EU’s rotating Presidency.
The Presidency regards the holding of the conference as detrimental to efforts aimed at furthering the dialogue among civilisations, cultures and religions, it said.
The EU Presidency condemned in the strongest of terms any politically or racially motivated attempts and the use of pseudo-scholarship to deny or question the Holocaust and said that it was disturbed by the continuous efforts of the Iranian government to question or trivialise the undeniable historical facts of the Holocaust and its horrors.
European Commission Vice-President Franco Frattini also had harsh words for Tehran over its decision to hold the conference.
I want to express publicly my shock and indignation in relation to the Conference on the Holocaust being held these days in Teheran and that puts the Holocaust into question, Frattini said in a statement.
In the face of this event, I want to state my firm condemnation of any attempt to deny, trivialise or minimise the Shoah, war crimes and crimes against humanity. I clearly reject these views which, in utter disregard of historically established facts, constitute an unacceptable affront not only to the victims of that tragedy and their descendants, but also to the whole democratic world, he said.
Separately, the Vatican issued a statement describing the Holocaust as an appalling tragedy.
The statement appeared to be timed to counter the conference in Tehran.
The Shoah was an appalling tragedy which one cannot remain indifferent to, the Holy See said.
Ahmadinejad caused an international furore last year when he publicly declared that the Holocaust was a myth and said that Israel must be wiped off the map.
