EU issues sanctions threat to Iran

Iran could face sanctions if it continued to provoke Israel and the West, European leaders warned today, as the Tehran regime said its president’s remarks had been “misunderstood”.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad aggravated tensions with the West this week by calling the Holocaust a “myth”, a statement that came two months after he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map”.

European leaders said Ahmadinejad’s remarks were the latest “provocative political moves” from Tehran since May.

“These comments are wholly unacceptable and have no place in civilised political debate,” the leaders said in a summit statement today.

EU leaders warned Tehran they would review diplomatic options for possible sanctions against Iran.

The condemnation came as Iran prepared to resume talks on Wednesday with European envoys over its nuclear programme, which the EU and US fear is intended to build atomic weapons.

Envoys from Britain, Germany and France are trying to persuade Tehran to halt uranium enrichment.

“I haven’t seen any evidence that Iran is interested in a deal that is going to be acceptable to an international community that is extremely sceptical of what the Iranians are up to,” US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said in Washington.

Rice predicted the US would have enough votes at the United Nations Security Council to impose international sanctions against Iran, but hinted she was waiting for other nations to join such an effort.

EU leaders warned that the bloc was losing patience in mediating the stand-off, saying: “The window of opportunity will not remain open indefinitely.”

The leaders said they were “gravely concerned at Iran’s failure to build confidence that its nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful”.

On Ahmadinejad’s comments regarding the Holocaust, Iran’s interior minister insisted yesterday that the West had “misunderstood” what he was saying.

Ahmadinejad “wanted to say that if others harmed the Jewish community and created problems for the Jewish community, they have to pay the price themselves”, Mostafa Pourmohammadi told The Associated Press in Athens. “People like the Palestinian people or other nations should not pay the price.”

“A historical incident has occurred. Correct or not correct. We don’t want to launch research or carry out historical investigation about it,” Pourmohammadi said.

In Berlin, German MPs unanimously condemned the Iranian president’s remarks, calling them “completely unacceptable”. Denying the Holocaust is a crime in Germany, a country sensitive about its Nazi past and the genocide that killed more than six million Jews.

In remarks carried live by state television, Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that if Europeans insisted the Holocaust occurred, then they were responsible and should pay the price.

“Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets,” Ahmadinejad said in Iran. “If you committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price?

“This is our proposal: If you committed the crime, then give a part of your own land in Europe, the US, Canada or Alaska to them so that the Jews can establish their country.”