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Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives at the International Conference of the Prosecutors of Islamic Countries in Tehran where he denounced Israel - Source: Reuters -
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Iran's president accused Israel of brutal acts and ethnic
cleansing against the Palestinians, two days after his denunciation
of the Jewish state as racist prompted a walk-out from a UN meeting
on race.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a conference in Tehran on Israel's
genocide and war crimes in Gaza that Israeli criminals should be
brought to justice for the war in the Palestinian coastal strip in
January.
He said Iran, Israel's arch-foe, had submitted requests for the
arrests of 25 Zionist war criminals to Interpol.
Iran often refers to Israel as the Zionist regime. Iran had
previously announced that it had taken such action with
Interpol.
"(They) must be held accountable for all their brutality,"
Ahmadinejad told the meeting of prosecutors from Islamic countries
in a speech broadcast live on state television.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran ... expects this organisation to
fulfil its legal duties," he said in comments translated by Iran's
English-language Press TV.
"Siege and mass murder of the Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic
cleansing in other occupied areas are all considered as other
crimes committed by the Zionist regime," Ahmadinejad said.
On Monday the Iranian president, who has in the past raised doubts
about the Nazi Holocaust, denounced Israel at a United Nations
conference on racism as a totally racist government founded on the
pretext of Jewish sufferings.
Ahmadinejad's comments caused European countries not already
boycotting the conference to walk out but drew applause from
Islamic delegations.
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday condemned his remarks as
appalling and objectionable.
Soft speech
On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad said the UN conference in Geneva was a
defeat for Israel and accused the Jewish state of trying to
introduce a new interpretation of racism.
"But for the first time at an international conference the freedom
spirit of the nations ... neutralised the Zionists' evil plans and
became victorious," Ahmadinejad said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused Ahmadinejad on Tuesday of
misusing the UN conference.
Ahmadinejad said Ban Ki-moon had asked him to make a soft speech at
the conference, but he had rejected it.
"I told him, if not exposing all this at a UN conference, then
where should issues like crimes in Gaza ... and genocide of the
Palestinians be raised?" he added.
Ahmadinejad was criticised for attending the conference by his main
moderate challenger in Iran's June presidential election Mirhossein
Mousavi, Iran's moderate newspapers said.
Mousavi believes in a conciliatory foreign policy toward the West
unlike Ahmadinejad, who was the only head of state to address the
Geneva conference.
