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 United States and Israel.

The organizers, the Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), say the two-day conference has 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 scholars 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."

Iranian 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," Mottaki said.

"If the official version of the Holocaust is thrown into doubt, then the identity and nature of Israel will be thrown into doubt. 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?" Mottaki said.

Israel terms it 'sick phenomenon'

In Israel, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on the world to protest the conference, terming it "a sick phenomenon."

Israel's official Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, issued a statement condemning the Teheran conference as an attempt to "paint (an) extremist agenda with a scholarly brush."

Among the participants were the prominent French holocaust-denier, Robert Faurisson, and six members of the group Jews United Against Zionism, who were dressed in the traditional long black coats and black hats of orthodox Jews.

The conference was expected to receive a message from President Ahmadinejad, who has said that the killing of six million Jews by the Nazi German regime during World War II was a "myth" and "exaggerated."

(China Daily 12/12/2006 page8)