02:21 29/10/2005
Iranian president repeats his call for the destruction of Israel
By Aluf Benn and Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondents, and Agencies
Iran is counting Venezuela as a friend and ally, an Iranian government official said on Friday, amid a diplomatic storm set off by comments from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week that Israel should be "wiped off the map."
"We are two friendly countries, Iran and Venezuela ... When one is in need the other supports," Saeed Jalili, Iran's Vice Minister of Foreign Relations for Europe and America, said during a visit to Caracas.
Despite condemnations from the West and ally Russia, Ahmadinejad on Friday signaled he stood by his call for Israel to be eliminated. Israel said it would request an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council over the comments.
Venezuela and Iran, both members of the oil exporters' cartel OPEC, have strengthened ties since President Hugo Chavez first won office in 1998 and tightened relations with other crude producing nations.
But Venezuela's Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez appealed for caution on Friday and said that the South American nation would have to consider the comments of the Islamic Republic.
"For us to fix a position we need the official versions of the respective countries," Rodriguez told journalists.
Meanwhile in Teheran, Over a million Iranians staged anti-Israel protests across the country as Ahmadinejad repeated his earlier call demanding Israel's destruction.
China and Turkey on Friday joined the list of nations around the world condemning Ahmadinejad's calls to destroy Israel.
The Vatican also condemned the Iranian leader's statement, calling it "particularly serious and unacceptable."
U.K's tabloid newspaper, The Sun, called Ahmadinejad 'the most evil man in the world' in a huge two-page spread.
The Iranian demonstrations are being held as part of annual Al-Quds - Jerusalem - Day protests, which were first held in 1979 after Shi'ite Muslim clerics took power in Iran.
Ahmadinejad made an appearance at the Tehran rally and took a short walk with the crowd. He rejected the West's condemnation of his original comments that "Israel must be wiped off the map" as "invalid."
"My words were the Iranian nation's words. Westerners are free to comment, but their reactions are invalid," Ahmadinejad told the official IRNA news agency.
State-run television showed Ahmadinejad surrounded by protesters, many holding banners carrying anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian slogans including "Death to Israel, death to America."
Young girls wearing head-to-toe black chadors with green headbands covered in Islamic verses chanted anti-Israeli slogans below a banner showing caricatures of U.S. President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Just prior, however, Iran sought to smooth over the effects of Ahmadinejad's comments, saying through its Moscow embassy that he did not mean to "speak up in such sharp terms."
World leaders have condemned the remarks, which Ahmadinejad made Wednesday. He was repeating the words of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's Islamic revolution.
"Mr. Ahmadinejad did not have any intention to speak up in such sharp terms and enter into a conflict," the Iranian Embassy in Moscow said in a statement.
"It's absolutely clear that, in his remarks, Mr. Ahmadinejad, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, underlined the key position of Iran, based on the necessity to hold free elections on the occupied territories," the statement said.
But Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was less diplomatic, telling state-run television late Thursday that Iran does not consider Israel legitimate.
"The comments expressed by the president is the declared and specific policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said. "We don't recognize the Zionist regime and don't consider it legitimate." Mottaki also said the massive demonstrations would illustrate the anger of the Islamic world over the Jewish state's existence.
China, Turkey condemn comments China said Friday it disapproved of the Iranian president's calls to destroy Israel, saying such comments ratcheted up Middle East tensions and made Beijing uneasy.
China's Foreign Ministry released a statement criticizing the comments by Ahmadinedjad.
"This kind of opinion violates the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and intensifies tensions in the Middle East and goes against the interests of the Middle East region and its people," said the statement, which was in response to a media request for comment.
"China feels unease regarding this opinion," it said, but did not elaborate.
Turkey, the only Muslim country to have close security ties with Israel, added its voice on Friday to the international condemnation of Ahmadinejad's remarks.
"Turkey believes that regional conflicts can only be solved through dialogue and peaceful methods," Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan said in a statement.
"Turkey believes that international relations should be developed in a spirit of intercultural harmony and dialogue at a time when our world faces the danger of a clash between civilizations," Tan added. "Naturally it is not possible for us to approve of such a statement (by Ahmadinejad)," he said.
Israel calls for Iran's expulsion from UN The Foreign Ministry was moving forward Friday with its diplomatic offensive against Iran, launched in response to the Iranian president's statement.
On Thursday, Israel called for the expulsion of Iran from the UN. The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Gillerman, asked the rotating president of the UN Security Council to expel Iran from the world body. Gillerman wrote in a letter that Ahmadinejad's comments require a strong and decisive response from the international community, Israel Radio reported. He said no country that calls for violence and destruction should be allowed membership in the UN.
Sharon said at a meeting Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that a country which calls for the destruction of another people cannot be a member of the UN. "Such a country that has nuclear weapons is a danger, not only to Israel and the Middle East, but also to Europe," Sharon said.
Senior Foreign Ministry officials convened Thursday to decide on the best policy for handling the issue. Some of the officials expressed reservations about the diplomatic offensive, saying it would be better for Israel to keep a low profile; however, this position was rejected.
The Iranian foreign ministry called on its ambassadors in Europe to adopt countermeasures in response to their summoning by European foreign ministries. It called on the Iranian diplomats to present their "serious protest" against the European ignorance of "crimes committed by the Zionists and suppression of the Palestinian nation."
Lavrov, meanwhile, said his government had condemned the statements and called in the Iranian ambassador to Moscow for clarification of the remarks. He said the Russian ambassador to Tehran had also been instructed to present an official condemnation.
Lavrov also met with Vice Premier Shimon Peres and said that Moscow is opposed to Iran's attempts to develop and produce nuclear weapons. He said that there was as yet no proof that Iran actually had nuclear weapons and that, according to Russia's information, it would take a long time before Tehran actually had nuclear capability.
Therefore, Lavrov added, the wide-scale diplomatic campaign against Iran should be continued unabated but care should be taken not to push Tehran to a point where it refuses to abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as North Korea has done.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reprimanded Iran's president Thursday for calling for the destruction of Israel. Annan expressed "dismay" over Ahmadinejad's comments in a statement released in a special bulletin by his spokesman.
"Israel is a long-standing member of the United Nations with the same rights and obligations as every other member," Annan said in a statement. The UN Charter is opposed to threats or use of force against the territorial integrity and political independence of any state, he said. Annan said he plans to visit Iran in "the next few weeks" and would put the Middle East peace process and the right of all states to live in peace and safety within secure borders at the top of his agenda.
As the diplomatic offensive continued, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom met with his French counterpart, Philippe Douste-Blazy in Paris, and said that "the international community must prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. Tehran says its nuclear program is purely to make power but we know what the Iranians' real intentions are," he said.
"The Iranians are trying to develop a nuclear bomb in order to destroy the state of Israel," he told reporters after the meeting. "The time has come for the whole international community to be united in order to stop the Iranians."
Shalom said Iran is developing missiles with a 3,000-kilometer range that can reach Europe. Iran is a threat to the entire West; it already has missiles that can reach Israel. Shalom said it is conceivable that Tehran might have a nuclear bomb within six months.
Douste-Blazy called Ahmadinejad's comments "unacceptable and shocking." "Nobody has the right to call the state of Israel into question," he said. "We will not permit a nuclear Iran."
Iranian president repeats his call for the destruction of Israel
