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CORR: Iran Radio Says President's Remarks on Israel Nothing New

Posted on: Thursday, 27 October 2005, 09:00 CDT

Text of report by Iranian radio on 27 October

[Please note that the service code has been changed from IRTV1 to VIRI]

Iranian President [Mahmud] Ahmadinezhad's comments yesterday during the "World without Zionism" Conference was met with reaction by the officials of some western countries such as America, Canada, France, Britain, Germany and Australia. These countries' Foreign Ministry spokespersons criticized the Iranian president's comments on the Zionist regime.

Considering that the president's comments have been repeated by other Iranian officials during the past 26 years and the Iranian government is not announcing a new policy, some western countries' reaction to these remarks has surprised the world public opinion. Now, the question being asked by international circles is that even though Mr Ahmadinezhad has repeated the Iranian government's past position, why have these remarks led to so much reaction by some western countries?

The reality is that these western officials are not causing all this hue and cry without a reason. They know very well that Iran has not officially recognized the Zionist regime and Iranian officials have announced many times that the country supports the holding of a referendum in Occupied Palestine with the participation of the genuine residents of these lands such as the refugees including Muslims, Jews and Christians and the followers of other religions which exist in Palestine..

There are a number of reasons behind the Western governments' hasty reaction to these remarks. First, by adopting such a stance, they are attempting to undermine the people's participation in the Qods Day demonstrations [demonstrations held on the last Friday of the month of Ramadhan in support of the Palestinians], and in their own view, undermine the Iranian people's million-strong participation in Friday's [28 Oct] demonstrations. This is whilst tomorrow's demonstrations will prove that the Iranian people do not pay attention to the policies of the countries which support Israel, and believe the stances adopted by the president and other Iranian officials to be that of their own. They will prove that Iran's public opinion has the same view as Iranian officials such as the president towards the Palestinian issue.

The second objective being pursued by some western countries is that they want to present a dark image of Iran to the world in order to prove to western public opinion that Iran is trying to acquire nuclear weapons because it doesn't accept the Qods occupying regime's [Israel] legitimacy. In addition, they are trying to undermine Iran's interaction with the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] and attempting to impose restrictions on Iran's right to enrich uranium and acquire the nuclear fuel cycle.

The Iranian people and officials are familiar with behaviour by western countries and media. Considering that various similar scenarios have been repeated in the past, its very unlikely that the world public opinion or international organizations will give credence to this commotion and hue and cry.

Source: BBC Monitoring Newsfile

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