Haaretz
Kislev 23, 5766
TEHERAN - An Iranian official on Friday
called for the establishment of a committee to clarify the real extent of
the Holocaust, the news agency Fars reported.
"(Iranian President
Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad wants European governments to allow Western scholars
to publish their research on the Holocaust," Mohammad-Ali Ramin, head of
the Society for defending the rights of Muslim minorities in the West,
told Fars.
"Ahmadinejad should therefore propose establishment of
an international committee for clarifying the real extent of the
Holocaust," the official added.
There has been no reaction yet by
the Iranian president or government on the proposal.
Ramin praised
Ahmadinejad for having voiced his doubts over the Holocaust and the need
for relocating the Jews to Europe if Europeans really did the massacre
during the Second World War.
"In the last twenty years the previous
governments refrained from referring to this issue for the sake of leading
a detente policy with the West where doubting the Holocaust is a crime,"
Ramin said, referring to the detente policies of ex-presidents Akbar
Hashemi- Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami.
"But the more we
distanced ourselves from our revolutionary stance and the urge for justice
(in Palestine), the more we lost our opportunities in foreign relations,"
he added.
Ramin said that Ahmadinejad, however, was "no man of
retreat" and someone who would decisively support national and religious
interests in international forums.
Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli
remarks found support within Iran's political landscape. However, former
president Rafsanjani said that while Teheran rendered spiritual and
humanitarian support to the Palestinian people, Iran should avoid
"adventurism" and lea