Iran yesterday opened a conference that it said would examine whether the Holocaust took place, claiming the meeting was an opportunity to discuss the World War II genocide in an atmosphere free of what it termed "Western taboos."
The conference was initiated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has described the Holocaust as a "myth" and called for Israel to be wiped off the map. Even before it opened, the gathering was condemned by Germany, the US and Israel.
The organizer, the Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), said the two-day conference had drawn 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries.
In his opening speech, the institute's chief, Rasoul Mousavi, said the conference provided an opportunity to discuss "questions" about the Holocaust away from Western taboos and the restrictions imposed on academics in Europe.
In Germany, Austria and France, it is illegal to deny the Holocaust.
"This conference seeks neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust," Mousavi said.
"It is just to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue," he said.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dismissed the foreign criticism as "predictable," telling conference delegates in a speech that there was "no logical reason for opposing this conference."
"The objective for organizing this conference is to create an atmosphere to raise various opinions about a historical issue," he said.
"If the official version of the Holocaust is thrown into doubt, then the identity and nature of Israel will be thrown into doubt" Mottaki said.
"And if, during this review, it is proved that the Holocaust was a historical reality, then what is the reason for the Muslim people of the region and the Palestinians having to pay the cost of the Nazis' crimes?" he said.
In Israel, the official Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, issued a statement condemning the Tehran conference as an attempt to "paint [an] extremist agenda with a scholarly brush."
"The Iranian governments pseudo-academic conference, `Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision,' is an effort to mainstream Holocaust denial and must be unequivocally rejected," Yad Vashem said.
The conference was expected to receive a message from Ahmadinejad, who has said that the killing of 6 million Jews by the Nazi German regime during World War II was a "myth" and "exaggerated."
The president has repeatedly questioned why the Holocaust has been used to justify the creation of Israel at the cost of Palestinian lands -- a view popular among Iranian hardliners.
Iran has spent months preparing for the conference.
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