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| By: Associated Press |
| Published: December 14, 2005 |
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The Iranian president's description of the Holocaust as a myth is "shocking and unacceptable," Germany said on Wednesday.
The German government said Chancellor Angela Merkel would call on the European Union to press for international condemnation of the comments at the United Nations.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments weighed on relations between Berlin and Tehran and on talks over Iran's nuclear program.
Steinmeier said his government had already summoned the charge d'affaires at the Iranian Embassy and made its displeasure "unmistakably clear."
"I cannot hide the fact that this weighs on bilateral relations and on the chances for the negotiation process, the so-called nuclear dossier," he told reporters.
Berlin is hoping for "a clear signal of the strongest disapproval" from this week's European Union summit, Steinmeier said.
At the same meeting, Merkel will talk to Germany's European partners about bringing the matter up at the United Nations "to obtain a clear condemnation, a sharp rejection of these comments by the international community," government spokesman Thomas Steg said.
Steg said Merkel, at a Cabinet meeting, described Ahmadinejad's latest outburst as "unbelievable."
He gave no direct answer when asked whether further measures against Iran might be considered, but stressed that the comments are "a European and an international problem."
Any "further measures should ... be discussed together with our European partners and in the international community," he said.
Ahmadinejad provoked an international outcry in October when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
He then expressed doubt about the Nazi destruction of European Jewry during World War II and went further Wednesday - saying that the Holocaust is a "myth" that Europeans have used to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world.
"The new remarks by the Iranian president, in which not only Israel's right to exist is denied but also ... the Holocaust are indeed shocking and unacceptable," Steinmeier said.
Germany, along with France and Britain, has been leading diplomatic efforts to allay fears over Iran's nuclear intentions. Later this month, Iran is due to resume negotiations the issue with envoys from the three countries. |
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