'No calm in Mideast as long as Israel exists'

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday repeated his assertion that there will be no tranquility in the Middle East as long as Tehran's archenemy, Israel, continues to exist.

"As long as the Zionist regime exists, if only on a small piece of land in Palestine, the region will not see tranquility" he said to a crowd gathered at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on the eve of the 22nd anniversary of the revolutionary leader's death.

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"So all the people of the region shall move towards the disappearance of American domination in the region and the disappearance of the Zionist regime," Ahmadinejad said in the speech, which was broadcast live on state radio.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also made comments, saying that Iran backs "the undivided country of Palestine which belongs to the Palestinians."

"Palestine will return to the arms of Islam, without any doubt," he added. 

Iran has not recognized Israel since the 1979 Islamic revolution and backs Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups fighting against it.

Ahmadinejad in late May reacted to President Barack Obama's landmark speech on the Middle East, dubbing the idea of the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as a "satanic plan" doomed to "fail."

Obama said in the speech in mid-May that the borders of Israel and Palestine "should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states."

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