UN secretary general says he was "disturbed" to hear the Iranian leader's comments to the GA.
By ITAMAR SHARONahmadinjad ban ki-moon un 224 88(photo credit: AP)
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has said that he personally confronted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his address to the UN General Assembly last month, in which the Iranian leader accused "Zionists" of covertly influencing world powers and said that Israel was on its way to collapse.
On Monday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center said it had been told by an aide to the secretary general that "the secretary general was disturbed to hear the comments made by President Ahmadinejad of Iran in which he predicted the collapse of Israel and alluded to racial stereotypes. The secretary general raised this issue with both President Ahmadinejad and Iranian Foreign Minister [Manouchehr] Mottaki, who met with him at their request, and urged the Iranian officials to refrain from making such remarks."
Ban also pledged to continue to advocate full respect of the UN resolutions against Holocaust denial.
But officials in the Wiesenthal Center said such protest, while admirable, was not enough.
"While we welcome the secretary's personal protest, there will be no change in Iran's state-sponsored anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, so long as the world's diplomats hug and applaud the Iranian president after his hate-filled speech," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center. He added,
"We urge the permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and Austria to publicly sanction Iran for its threats against the Jewish people and Israel and its leadership and for its continuing state-sponsored denial of the Shoah," Cooper stated.
Allison Hoffman contributed to this report.
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