Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust was a ‘myth’ as he addressed the annual Quds Day rally in Tehran, reiterating comments that sparked outrage around the world.
The United States, Britain, France and Germany all issued statements slamming his latest outburst.
Washington condemned Ahmadinejad’s comments as ignorant and hateful.
“Regardless that we’ve heard that type of rhetoric before, obviously we condemn what he said, and I would point to what the president (Barack Obama) said in Cairo: denying the Holocaust is baseless, ignorant and hateful,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
“Promoting those vicious lies serves only to isolate Iran further from the world”.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband branded Ahmadinejad’s comments “abhorrent as well as ignorant’, and said they were ‘not worthy of the leader of Iran.”
“The coincidence of today’s comments with the start of Jewish New Year only adds to the insult,” he added.
French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero called the Iranian president’s remarks “unacceptable and shocking. We resolutely condemn them”.
