Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad`s speech at a UN conference on racism had widespread Arab support even if it stirred a Western walkout over his anti-Israeli stand, Syria said on Wednesday.
"A large proportion of public opinion in the Arab world supports the words of the Iranian president," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said at a joint press conference with his Luxembourg counterpart Jean Asselborn.<>
The president used his podium in Geneva on Monday to criticise the creation of a "totally racist government in occupied Palestine" in 1948, branding the Israeli administration "the most cruel and repressive racist regime."
Ahmadinejad, who has previously called for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map, said the West "sent migrants from Europe, the United States ... in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine."
His remarks prompted 23 European Union delegations to walk out in protest.
"The Palestinians should not be turned into victims of a Holocaust which they did not commit. It should not serve as a pretext for the Israelis to commit a Holocaust in Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon," Muallem was quoted by AFP as saying.
The Syrian minister referred to the "bad conscience of the Europeans towards the Holocaust" of six million Jews that was carried out in Europe by the Nazis during World War II.
For his part, Asselborn spoke up against any efforts to "deny history ... and deny the fundamental principles of humanity," in implicit criticism of Ahmadinejad`s doubts over the Holocaust.
"Israel has the right to live in security, the Palestinians have the right to live in dignity. A two-state solution is necessary," the Luxembourg foreign minister said. (dar)
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