Iran's Foreign Minister Calls Israel 'Illegal Regime'

Foreign Minister Mottaki (left) with President Ahmadinejad (file photo) (epa) May 20, 2007 -- Iranian Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki said on May 19 that although Israel is a regime with an "illegal basis," Iran is not "talking about eliminating any nation or any country."

Mottaki was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Jordan.


He added that the future borders of a historical Palestinian state should be decided in a referendum by its "original" inhabitants.


Iran's president, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, said in October 2005 that "as the imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution] said, Israel must be wiped off the map." Ahmadinejad has also called the Holocaust massacre of millions of Jews during World War II a "myth."


(AFP, Reuters)

Iranian Anti-Zionism

Iranian Anti-Zionism

President Ahmadinejad visiting the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in October (Fars)

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Each year in Iran, the last Friday of Ramadan is celebrated as Qods (Jerusalem) Day, officially a day for expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people.
"I have been notifying the Muslims of the danger posed by the usurper Israel," Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of Iran's Islamic Revolution, said in an August 1979 announcement. "I ask all the Muslims of the world and the Muslim governments to join together to sever the hand of this usurper and its supporters...and, through a ceremony demonstrating the solidarity of Muslims worldwide, announce their support for the legitimate rights of the Muslim people..." (more)

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INTERVIEW: On December 22, 2005, RFE/RL's Radio Farda spoke with FRED ZEIDMAN, director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Zeidman commented on Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli comments.


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