Mottaki: Israel won't be wiped off map
Iranian foreign minister, in a press conference in Jordan, says Ahmadinejad's controversial comment should not be seen as threat
“Every primary school student knows that it is not possible to remove a country from the map and that is very clear,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in a press conference in Jordan when asked about Ahmadinejad’s controversial remarks.
Ahmadinejad caused an international storm in 2005 when, in a conference at an Iranian university entitled 'The World without Zionism', he quoted a remark from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran's Islamic revolution, who said that Israel "must be wiped out from the map of the world."
The president then said: "And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism," according to a quote published by IRNA.
Iranian officials have claimed that that remark should not be seen as a threat. “We are not talking about the invasion of any country,” Mottaki said. He added that Iran believed that “without justice” no peace plan would end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
At the press conference, the Iranian foreign minister spoke of his intended involvement in future negotiations with the European Union regarding Iran's nuclear program, saying that the next round of talks was scheduled for next month in Spain.
The last such meeting took place at the end of April, between Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani.
Ynetnews contributed to this report
