25 May 2007
The Jewish community in Belarus has sharply criticized a visit to the country by Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "How is it possible to invite a person, the leader of a state, who thinks that in order to resolve the Middle East problem it is necessary to destroy a whole state and people?," Yakov Basin, deputy head of the Union of Jewish Associations of Belarus, was quoted by 'European Jewish Press' as saying. Basin said he was "strongly opposed" to the two-day visit which was at the invitation of the authoritarian Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko. "It's shameful to talk with a man who today plays the role of a modern Hitler," Basin added. Lukashenko has already visited Iran twice, in 2001 and 2006, but has not visited any EU country recently.
The EU enforces a travel ban on Lukashenko and other top Belarusian officials for quashing independent political parties, arresting opposition leaders and muzzling the media. The former Soviet state has been dubbed 'Europe's last dictatorship' by the United States. On Tuesday, Lukashenko heaped praise on his Iranian counterpart, rejecting claims that their two-day meeting was one of pariah leaders. "If anyone thinks that this is a meeting of outcast states, just meeting for the sake of meeting, you are deeply mistaken," the Belarusian leader said. "We are satisfied by the results of our talks and have achieved all the goals we set ourselves." Lukashenko praised Tehran for granting Belarus rights to an Iranian oil field that he said would reduce his countrys' dependence on Russia.
On Monday, Ahmadinejad laid flowers at a memorial to victims of World War II but avoided referring to the Holocaust. Jewish groups estimate that as many as 800,000 Jews were killed on the present-day territory of Belarus during World War II. Today, around 50,000 Jews live in the country, many of them in the capital Minsk. Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna sent a report to the United Nations Security Council saying that Iran is still in defiance of UN Resolution 1747 and has considerably expanded its uranium enrichment program in recent months. The Security Council imposed a second round of sanctions on Iran in March, for failing to suspend uranium enrichment, and it had asked the IAEA to report within 60 days on whether Iran had complied. Back in Tehran, Ahmadinejad reiterated on Thursday that Iran would continue its nuclear program.
"The enemies' goal of preventing peaceful use of nuclear energy is not a technical nuclear position," Ahmadinejad told a gathering of commanders of the Iranian Revolution Guards. The hard-line Iranian leader also issue another threat to Israel: The "Zionist regime" would be "uprooted if it attacks Lebanon again this summer", Ahmadinejad said. "If you think that by bombing and assassinating Palestinian leaders you are preparing ground for new attacks on Lebanon in the summer, I am telling you that you are seriously wrong," he told a crowd in the city of Isfahan, adding, "If this year you repeat the same mistake of the last year, the ocean of nations of the region will get angry and will cut the root of the Zionist regime from its stem." Referring to the history of Israel, Ahmadinejad said that "60 years of invasion and assassination is enough. If you do not cease invasion and massacre, soon the hand of power of the nations of the region will rub you criminals with earth."
