Israel will soon be `eliminated,' says Iranian president

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday that Israel was a "constant threat" and predicted that it was on the verge of "being eliminated."

His comments, which echoed his remark last year about "wiping Israel off the map," were made at a three-day conference on Palestine that has brought together Palestinian militant leaders and their supporters from Muslim countries.

"The Zionist regime is an injustice and by its very nature a permanent threat," Ahmadinejad said during his speech at the conference. "Whether you like it or not, the Zionist regime is on the road to being eliminated." He referred to Israel as a "rotten, dried tree" that would collapse in "one storm."

Ahmadinejad also said: "If there is serious doubt over the Holocaust, there is no doubt over the catastrophe and holocaust being faced by the Palestinians. Holocaust has been continuing in Palestine over the past 60 years."

Israel reacts

In Jerusalem, former Israeli premier Shimon Peres said yesterday that the UN must take Ahmadinejad to task over his latest implicit threats.

The influential senior statesman also predicted that the firebrand Iranian leader would meet the same fate as Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator overthrown in the 2003 US-led invasion.

"Iran is a member state of the United Nations that is threatening to destroy another member state of the United Nations," Peres said in remarks reported by public radio.

"The United Nations cannot but react. The world must unite against the Iranian president," he said.

Among the participants in the Iranian conference were Khaled Mashaal, a top figure in Hamas, and Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, the head of the militant group Islamic Jihad, which is supported by Iran. At the conference, Tehran urged other Muslim nations to join it in sending money to Hamas to make up for the withdrawal of donations by the US and the EU after the group's election victory and control of the Palestinian government.

Ahmad Zeidabadi, a political analyst in Tehran, said the conference seemed to be part of the Iranian government's strategy of building political support by appealing to its conservative base.

US eyes penalties

Meanwhile, the US is mulling various UN sanctions against Iran for its controversial nuclear program, including assets freezes and travel restrictions on its leaders, US officials said on Friday.

The US State Department said a meeting of major world powers next week in Moscow would discuss possible punitive measures against Iran if it does not scrap its suspected effort to build a nuclear bomb.

Nicholas Burns, the department's number three official, will try to nail down a consensus in talks on Tuesday with counterparts from European allies, Canada, Russia, China and Japan, spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"These meetings are intended to start to tee up decisions ... about diplomatic next steps, real actions that the Security Council and that the UN can take to increase the pressure on the Iranian regime." he said.