Re: Israel to be ‘wiped off the World map’
World Reaction to Ahmadinejad Comments:
**The Palestinian Authority **
Palestinian Authority senior negotiator Saeb Erekat on Thursday condemned the Iranian President Majmoud Ahmadinejad call for Israel’s destruction.
“This is unacceptable to us,” Erekat said. “We have recognized the state of Israel and we are pursuing a peace process with Israel, and … we do not accept the statements of the president of Iran. This is unacceptable.”
The UN
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reprimanded Iran’s president Thursday for calling for the destruction of Israel.
Annan expressed “dismay” over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments Wednesday calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”
“Israel is a long-standing member of the United Nations with the same rights and obligations as every other member,” Annan said in a statement
The E.U.
“EU leaders … today condemned in the strongest terms the comments in respect of the State of Israel attributed to President Ahmadinejad of Iran,” EU leaders said in a statement issued at a one-day summit outside London.
“Calls for violence, and for the destruction of any state, are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community,” they said.
Canada
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Pierre Pettigrew, said he wanted to “vigorously condemn the remarks made by Iran’s president. We are in the 21st century. Canada will never accept such hatred, intolerance and anti-Semitism. Never.”
“The comments are all the more troubling given Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its refusal to cooperate fully with International Atomic Energy inspectors,” Pettigrew said.
Russia
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is in Israel for meetings with Israeli leaders, told Sharon on Thursday that Ahmadinejad’s comments are unacceptable to Russia and that the Iranian ambassador to Moscow has been asked to provide an explanation.
“I don’t agree that anyone should challenge the right of any UN member to exist,” he said earlier in the day. “This is indeed inadmissible.”
“I think this does not add to efforts of those who are trying to normalize the situation around Iran,” said Lavrov. “Those who insist on transfering the Iranian nuclear dossier to the United Nations Security Council received an additional argument to do so.”
Austria
Austria “resolutely rejects” Ahmadinejad’s comments, said Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik. Plassnik said her ministry had summoned the Iranian envoy in Vienna for discussions about the matter.
Britian
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday he has “never come across a situation of the president of a country saying they want to … wipe out another country,” Blair said at the close of a European Union summit outside London.
“Their attitude towards Israel, their attitude towards terrorism, their attitude on the nuclear weapons issue, it isn’t acceptable. … Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having a nuclear weapon?”
He said the comments made him feel “revulsion.”
France
French officials on Thursday told Iran’s ambassador to Paris that Israel’s right to exist “cannot be contested,” condemning the Iranian president’s call for the destruction of Israel.
The Iranian ambassador to France, Sadegh Kharrazi, was summoned to the French Foreign Ministry on Thursday morning and asked for “clarifications” of the remarks by Ahmadinejad.
Spain
Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos summoned Iran’s ambassador to protest Ahmadinejad’s comments.
The U.S.
White House Spokesman Scott McClellan said the incident “underscores the concerns we have about Iran’s nuclear intentions.”
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/638105.html