Under massive international condemnation, Iran moved rapidly to explain that its president’s call for Israel to be ”wiped off the map” should in no way be taken as a threat of violence.
As the United Nations Security Council joined Secretary General Kofi Annan, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Washington and a growing chorus in condemning Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks, diplomats and officials sought to defuse the row.
”The Islamic Republic of Iran is committed to its UN charter commitments,” a foreign ministry statement read on Saturday. ”It has never used force against a second country or threatened the use of force.”
The comments by the conservative Ahmadinejad in a speech to students at a conference marking the annual Jerusalem Day represented only his latest catastrophic blunder in presenting Iran’s relationship with the outside world since taking up the presidency three months ago.
Since he spoke on Wednesday, Tehran’s complex and competing centres of power have been plunged into a spin of contradictory briefing, with hard-liners — including the head of the Revolutionary Guards — backing Ahmadinejad and reformers trying to repair the damage.
In a mark of growing political polarisation, senior officials in the reformist camp have privately begun to wonder whether Ahmadinejad has the intelligence or skills to lead Iran at such a crucial juncture; others accuse him of living in the past.
While Ahmadinejad stuck by his comments on Friday, by Saturday — while not specifically rebutting the president’s remarks — the foreign ministry said Iran has no intention of launching an assault on the Jewish state and will back whatever course the Palestinians choose to resolve the Middle East conflict.
The Iranian embassy in Moscow — Russia is backing Iran’s attempts to secure civil nuclear technology — also issued a statement that belittled Ahmadinejad’s comments, saying ”he did not have any intention to speak up in such sharp terms and enter into a conflict”.
However, reassuring messages are unlikely in the short term to remove suspicions about Iran’s trajectory. The United States said his remarks underscore its fears that Tehran is pursuing nuclear arms. Tehran denies the charge, arguing it needs atomic fuel for power stations.
The foreign ministry statement said Ahmadinejad mapped out Iran’s policy on Israel at the UN in New York last month.
”The official stance … is that the occupation of Palestine should end, refugees should return and a democratic state should be formed with Jerusalem as its capital,” the statement added.
Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told the Isna student news agency that Iran will back whatever the Palestinians choose.
Ahmad Nateq Nouri, a senior conservative cleric and member of the Expediency Council, also played down the president’s comments: ”What the president meant was that we favour a fair and long-lasting peace in Palestine.”
This was the stance taken by Iran’s reformist government under former president Mohammad Khatami, whose eight-year presidency ended this year, a policy that left the path open for a two-state solution. — Guardian Unlimited Â