Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad openly called Wednesday for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and lashed out at Muslim nations which recognise the Jewish state, setting off a storm of protests.
"The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world," the president told a conference in Tehran entitled "The World without Zionism".
"As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map," said Ahmadinejad, referring to a slogan which Iran's revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini used before his death in 1989. His remarks triggered a swift response from Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom who said Iran was a "clear and present danger".
"We believe that Iran is trying to buy time ... so it can develop a nuclear bomb," said Shalom.
The White House said the call "underscores the concerns we have about Iran's nuclear operations", while the German foreign ministry said the comments were "completely unacceptable".
Ahmadinejad's comments were the first time in years that such a high-ranking Iranian official has openly called for Israel's eradication, even though such slogans are still regularly used at regime rallies.
"The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land," he thundered in a fiery speech on what he called an "historic war between the oppressor and the world of Islam".
Addressing some 4,000 students, Ahmadinejad also called for Palestinian unity, resistance and "the annihilation of the Zionist regime".
His arrival at the conference drew chants of "Death to Israel", but Ahmadinejad quickly told students - all of whom wore black and were sporting green headbands - to shout the slogan louder.
"The Islamic umma (community) will not allow its historic enemy to live in its heartland," said the president, an austere veteran of Iran's hard-line Revolutionary Guards who swept to a shock victory in a June election.
"Anyone who signs a treaty which recognises the entity of Israel means he has signed the surrender of the Muslim world," Ahmadinejad said, warning Muslim leaders who recognise Israel they "face the wrath of their own people."
"We should not settle for a piece of land," he said of Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip.
Ahmadinejad's uncompromising tone represents a dramatic change from that of former president Mohammad Khatami, a mild-mannered cleric whose favoured topic was "dialogue among civilisations" and who led an effort to improve Iran's relations with the West.
"If these remarks were indeed made, we condemn them in the strongest terms," said French foreign ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei. As a key member of the European Union, France has been leading efforts to "engage" Iran on issues such as nuclear proliferation, terrorism, human rights and the Middle East peace process.
But Ahmadinejad appeared to signal that the EU's policy was effectively dead - asserting that he viewed relations in terms of an "historic war" between Islam and the West.
"It dates back hundreds of years. Sometimes Islam has advanced. Sometimes nobody was winning. Unfortunately over the past 300 years, the world of Islam has been in retreat," he lamented. "One hundred years ago the last trench of Islam fell, when the oppressors went towards the creation the Zionist regime. They are using it as a fort to spread its aims in the heart of the Islamic world."
The term "oppressor" is used by the clerical regime to refer to the United States, and in the plural form generally also includes Britain and Israel.
Prizes were also on offer at the one-day event organised by the Islamic students' association for the best anti-Zionist caricature and in a letter-writing competition also themed: "The world without Zionism".
The event comes ahead of Friday's "Qods Day" events, a regime-organised rally of anti-Israeli sentiment that generally draws huge crowds in Tehran and other cities.
FRANCE TO SUMMON IRANIAN ENVOY:
PARIS: France will summon Iran's ambassador to Paris to question him over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map," Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said Wednesday.
"I learned of the comments... according to which the president of Iran says he wants Israel to disappear and said the conflict in the Middle East would perpetuate a secular fight between Jews and Muslims," Douste-Blazy said in a written statement.
"I condemn them very forcefully," he said.
"Therefore I have asked that the ambassador of Iran to Paris be summoned to (the foreign ministry) for an explanation," he said.
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