Iran opens conference to discuss evidence of Holocaust
TEHRAN: Iran on Monday opened a conference on the Holocaust, saying it would not be an attempt to deny the World War II genocide but merely to discuss it in an unrestricted atmosphere.
However, President MahmoudAhmadinejad, who has described the Holocaust as a myth and called for Israel to be wiped off the map, initiated the conference
The organizers, the Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), said the two-day conference has drawn 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in his opening address, styled the conference as a scientific forum that would seek to find answers to the questioning of the Holocaust by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly questioned the truth of the Holocaust, at one point describing the event as a "myth" and casting doubt on the scale of the killings.
"The simple question of the president of Iran: 'If the Holocaust is a historical event why can it not be researched?' set off a a wave of accusations against Iran without trying to find a logical answer," said Mottaki.
"The basic aim of this conference is not to deny or to prove the Holocaust but is to provide an opportunity for researchers from Europe to give their views about this historical phenomenon," he added.
The participants will be invited to a private meeting later with Ahmadinejad and a message from the fiercely anti-Israeli president is due to be read out in the course of the conference, although he will not attend himself.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp#14371
TEHRAN: Iran on Monday opened a conference on the Holocaust, saying it would not be an attempt to deny the World War II genocide but merely to discuss it in an unrestricted atmosphere.
However, President MahmoudAhmadinejad, who has described the Holocaust as a myth and called for Israel to be wiped off the map, initiated the conference
The organizers, the Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), said the two-day conference has drawn 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in his opening address, styled the conference as a scientific forum that would seek to find answers to the questioning of the Holocaust by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly questioned the truth of the Holocaust, at one point describing the event as a "myth" and casting doubt on the scale of the killings.
"The simple question of the president of Iran: 'If the Holocaust is a historical event why can it not be researched?' set off a a wave of accusations against Iran without trying to find a logical answer," said Mottaki.
"The basic aim of this conference is not to deny or to prove the Holocaust but is to provide an opportunity for researchers from Europe to give their views about this historical phenomenon," he added.
The participants will be invited to a private meeting later with Ahmadinejad and a message from the fiercely anti-Israeli president is due to be read out in the course of the conference, although he will not attend himself.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp#14371
