Haaretz
Kislev 15, 5766
European Union leaders were set
to condemn Iran's president for denying the Holocaust and warn Tehran the
opportunity for a diplomatic solution to its nuclear program cannot stay
open forever, diplomats said on Thursday.
A summit statement
drafted by EU foreign ministers said of
President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's statement that the Nazi mass extermination of Jews was a
myth: "These comments are wholly unacceptable and have no place in
civilized political debate."
It also voiced grave concern at
Iran's failure to remove
suspicions about its nuclear intentions and
said: "The window of opportunity will not remain open indefinitely."
Diplomats said the tough language on Iran was part of a
wider
EU statement on the Middle East to be issued either on Thursday night or
Friday.
Germany may ban Ahmadinejad's entry
German
officials are weighing up imposing some form of travel restriction on
Ahmadinejad after his denials that the Holocaust happened, a senior
foreign ministry official said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, both Russia
and a top Vatican cardinal condemned Ahmadinejad's Holocaust
denial.
Some six millions Jews were killed by the Nazis during
World War Two. Publicly denying that the Holocaust happened, as
Ahmadinejad has done twice, is a crime in Germany.
In an interview
with German WDR television, Gernot Erler, a state secretary at the foreign
ministry, said the ministry was discussing whether Ahmadinejad should be
allowed to enter Germany.
"We are considering whether some kind of
travel restrictions could possibly be applied here," Erler said.
The Iranian president told a crowd in the southeastern city of
Zahedan on Wednesday that the killing of millions of Jews by the Nazis was
a legend, reiterating comments which drew international condemnation last
week.
In October, Ahmadinejad said the Jewish state should be
"wiped off the map."
Erler said any retaliatory steps needed to be
carefully considered to ensure they did not undermine efforts by France,
Britain and Germany to persuade Iran to give up what Washington and the
European Union fear is an atomic weapons program.
"It would make
no sense ... to completely isolate this country, because then, for
example, a negotiated solution would no longer be possible," Erler said.
Iran denies wanting nuclear energy for anything other than the
peaceful generation of electricity.
Condemnations
Speaking in a parliamentary debate, German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks and said: "The
government in Tehran must understand that the patience of the
international community is not endless."
Russia responded on
Thursday to Ahmadinejad's latest remarks on the Holocaust and Israel by
reaffirming its condemnation of revisionist attempts to deny the Holocaust
and reiterating its support for Israel's right to a peaceful and secure
existence.
The statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry did not
directly condemn Ahmadinejad but said it was necessary to restate Moscow's
"principled position."
"Speculation on these themes runs contrary
to the principles of the UN Charter and the opinion of the world
community," the statement said.
A top Vatican cardinal said
Thursday that it was shocking and unacceptable for the Iranian president
to have said the Holocaust was a myth.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, a
German who heads the Vatican's office for relations with Jews, spoke at a
luncheon by the Anti-Defamation League as he received an award for his
efforts to improve Catholic-Jewish relations.
"It is shocking to
hear from the mouth of the president of a nation with an ancient and
venerable culture, as the Iranian nation is, expressions of anti-Semitism
which for every human being are unacceptable," Kasper said. "To
call
the Holocaust a myth is a new injustice to the victims of this
unprecedented genocide."
Kasper's comments were the strongest to
date by a Vatican official on the Iranian president's statements. In
October, the Vatican deemed such statements as "unacceptable" but did not
mention Iran by name.