29 August 2006
Iran's hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel that the Holocaust may have been invented by the victorious Allied powers in World War II to embarrass Germany, the semi-official Iranian news agency "Mehr" reports. The remarks by the Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly questioned the veracity of the Holocaust, came in a letter sent to Merkel in July whose contents have not been disclosed until now. "Is it not a reasonable possibility that some countries that had won the war made up this excuse to constantly embarrass the defeated people [in order to] bar their progress?" Ahmadinejad asks in the letter. "The question is if these countries, especially Britain, felt responsible for the Holocaust survivors, why they did not settle them in their own countries?" It is not the first time Ahmadinejad has voiced doubt about the mass slaughter of six million Jews under Nazi Germany, previously describing the Holocaust as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel. "By promoting the necessity of settlement of Holocaust survivors in the occupied Palestine, they have created a constant threat in the Middle East," he said, referring to Israel.
In July, Merkel had indicated that she would not formally respond to the letter, saying it contained "totally unacceptable" criticism of Israel and "constantly put in question" Israel's right to exist. Ahmadinejad blames what he describes as propaganda after World War II for making "some people feel historically guilty and indefinitely pay for the crimes of their fathers". Iran is to hold an international conference on the Holocaust in December that will allow historians to present "hidden aspects" of the Nazi atrocities. Media reports said the conference will touch on issues including the "reasons for anti-Semitism in Europe", "the Holocaust and Zionism", "the Holocaust in historical documents" and "Holocaust: rules and media".
The publication of the letter coincided with a visit to Berlin by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, where she urged the international community to stop the "threat" posed by Iran's nuclear program. "There is an additional threat, not just for the state of Israel but for the entire international community," Livni said after talks with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Germany, along with France and Britain, has been at the forefront of international diplomatic efforts to stop Iran enriching uranium amid fears that Iran is planning to build nuclear weapons.
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