Ahmadinejad stands by Israel remark, joins Tehran protests

Iranians chanting “death to Israel” and “death to America”, converged from nine points in the Iranian capital for a rally attended by most of Iran’s top officials. Ahmadinejad took a short walk in the crowd, rallying in support of his comments that the Islamic world could not tolerate the Jewish state in its heartland. He said Western criticism carried no weight.

“My words are the Iranian nation’s words,” he told the official IRNA news agency, when asked if he had a message for the world. “Westerners are free to comment, but their reactions are invalid.”

Officials and analysts in Tehran have played down the remarks by Ahmadinejad, an outspoken former Tehran mayor with little diplomatic experience. The Iranian embassy in Moscow sought to soften the effect of the comments saying: “Mr Ahmadinejad did not have any intention to speak up in such sharp terms and enter into a conflict,” the embassy said in a statement, a first official reaction to the West’s outrage.

“It’s absolutely clear that, in his remarks, Mr Ahmadinejad, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, underlined the key position of Iran, based on the necessity to hold free elections on the occupied territories.”

Analysts and media in Russia, however, said Ahmadinejad’s comment had seriously shaken Moscow’s resolve to protect its ally against a possible referral over its nuclear programme to the UN.

—Reuters