Governments from Russia to Canada condemned Iran's president for
saying Israel should be "wiped off the map," a call that once again
raised questions about Tehran's nuclear policy.
"These sentiments are completely and totally unacceptable,"'
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Thursday after chairing a
one-day meeting of European Union leaders.
"I felt a
real sense of revulsion at those remarks."
The United States, Canada, Russia and UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, in addition to European leaders, all criticized the remarks
from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a conservative
Islamic student meeting on Wednesday.
And Russia, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Ireland and Italy
summoned Iranian ambassadors in their respective capitals and asked
for an explanation.
Ahmadinejad told the students that Islamic nations "will not let
its historic enemy live in its heartland," adding: "Israel must be
wiped off the map."
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Iran should
be expelled from the United Nations.
"A country
that calls for the destruction of another people cannot be a member
of the United Nations."
His UN ambassador, Dan Gillerman, expressed the same sentiments in
a letter to Annan, and UN members.
"This
malicious statement warrants a resolute and strong response from
the international community," he said.
Annan, in his own statement expressed "dismay" over the president's
comments and said he would make the Middle East peace process the
focus of trip he had planned to Tehran in November.
He said
Israel, a long-standing member of the United Nations, had "the same
rights and obligations as every other member."
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the
Iranian leader's comments on Israel, combined with his hard-line
speech at the United Nations last month, underscored US concerns
over Iran's nuclear aims.
'Pernicious and unacceptable'
"What all of this does is underscores the validity of our and the
world's serious concern about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, as
well as its continuing support for terrorism and its oppression of
its own people," McCormack said.
US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton called the Iranian
president's comment "pernicious and unacceptable."
French President Jacques Chirac, speaking after a one-day informal
summit of EU leaders outside London, said, "I was profoundly
shocked by the statements of the Iranian president, which are
totally senseless and irresponsible. The Iranian president is
taking the risk of his country being made an outlaw state."
France and Britain are among those leading attempts to persuade
Iran to renounce nuclear technology.
Western
nations suspect Tehran may be constructing a weapons programme,
which Iran has denied.
Blair said if Iran carried on in this fashion, people would begin
asking, "When are you going to do something about this? Because you
imagine a state like that, with an attitude like that, having a
nuclear weapon."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, visiting Israel, called
Ahmadinejad's comments unacceptable.
He said
they gave ammunition to those seeking to refer Iran to the U.N.
Security Council on its nuclear policy.
Russia as well as China oppose such a referral, which could lead to
sanctions.
"I think we all must indeed be very sure that there is no attempt
in the modern world to challenge the existence of sovereign
states," Lavrov said later in Amman.
And in Canada, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said in a
statement his country would "never accept such hatred, intolerance
and anti-Semitism. Never."
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has not acknowledged
Israel's right to exist and is known to support militant
Palestinian groups.
Ahmadinejad, a former member of the hard-line Revolutionary Guards
is a traditional religious conservative who came to power this
year.
Under his predecessor, reformist President Mohammad Khatami, Iran
had shown signs of easing its hostility toward Israel and even
accepting a two-state solution to the Arab-Israel dispute, if
Palestinians agreed.
