Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that Israel was perpetrating a holocaust on the Palestinian people.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gestures during a Teheran press conference.
Photo: AP
Speaking to reporters at a press conference ahead of his visit to New York, Ahmadinejad also repeated previous anti-Israel comments, calling the Holocaust by Nazi Germany a "fake."
The Iranian President stated that the Jewish state wouldn't survive in any form.
He smirked at a former mantra of the Israeli right of a "Greater" Israel that would include occupied Palestinian territories, saying that while "some say the idea of Greater Israel has expired, I say the idea of a Lesser Israel has expired, too."
Earlier on Thursday, the Iranian president downplayed the possibility of an IAF strike against Iran.
"Israel is in a weak position to launch attacks against any other country," he was quoted by Press TV as saying.
Ahmadinejad said Iran would defend its territorial integrity if attacked, Press TV reported.
Despite Monday's International Atomic Energy Agency report saying that Iran had repeatedly blocked a UN investigation into allegations that it tried to make nuclear weapons, Ahmadinejad was also quoted as saying that the IAEA findings had actually confirmed the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program and that Teheran had cooperated with the UN agency with "full transparency."
"President Ahmadinejad said the report confirms Iran's peaceful drive for nuclear energy," Press TV said.
"He said the report had no negative points about Iran's nuclear program other than the alleged studies which have no legal basis and are beyond the jurisdiction of the UN nuclear watchdog," it continued.
Monday's damning new report claimed that the probe into Iran's weapons programs was now deadlocked and the findings suggested Iran tried to refit its main long-distance missile to carry a nuclear payload.
Also Thursday, European Union foreign policy Javier Solana said that Russia and China were "quite worried" about the new IAEA findings and that the report "isn't good for Iran."
He stopped short of saying that there was support for France's push for more UN Security Council sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Solana said the UN General Assembly would "analyze" the situation.
He was speaking on the sidelines of a Paris meeting of EU foreign ministers with their counterparts from five central Asian nations.
