Iran withholds supporting hypocratical move on Holocaust
Palestine-Iran, Politics, 1/27/2007

Iran yesterday dissociated itself from a UN General Assembly resolution on the Holocaust, saying its tabling was a politically-loaded hypocritical exercise to be exploited by the Zionist regime against Palestinians.

"In our view, there is no justification for genocide of any kind, nor can there be any justification for the attempts made by some, particularly by the Israeli regime, to exploit the past crimes as a pretext to commit new genocides and crimes," Hossein Gharibi, a New York-based Iranian diplomat told the assembly.

He was elaborating on the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran on withholding support to the draft resolution entitled Holocaust Denial, before he left the meeting in a sign of objection.

"I wish to place on record my delegation's deep concern over and rejection of the attempts made by certain members to misuse the General Assembly's procedure to raise an issue that has neither been on the agenda of its 61st Session, nor has it any relevance to the agenda item under which the resolution at hand has been tabled. There is every reason to believe that today's attempt is both procedurally and substantively flawed." Saying that the intention behind the move cannot be regarded as a genuine one, he added: The main sponsors' aim to present this draft resolution to the Assembly lies on their mischievous intention to pursue their narrow political interests through all means, including the misuse of this august body.

"If the thrust of the draft resolution is to condemn the crime of genocide, the Assembly, through a great number of resolutions, has already addressed this concern of grave nature. We, like many other countries, have condemned genocide against any race, ethnic or religious group as a crime against humanity." The envoy continued, "We reiterate this unambiguous position in this meeting today." He also stressed that many abhorrent cases of genocide that have occurred throughout history necessitate a thorough and comprehensive examination by the international community, in order to prevent the recurrence of such crimes in the future.

"Imposing a restrictive approach on such an examination will not certainly serve this purpose. Only by studying objectively what happened in the past, can we ensure that such crimes will never be repeated again." Addressing historical events of horrific enormity, with a view to avoiding their recurrence, requires a commensurate degree of research, scrutiny and rigor, he said.

"Moreover, genocide and the immense sufferings associated with that horrific crime should not be manipulated for political purposes." The Iranian diplomat also expressed regrets over the fact that the Israeli regime has routinely attempted to exploit the sufferings of the Jewish people in the past as a cover for the crimes its has committed over the past six decades against Palestinians in the occupied territories, including massacre, targeted assassination, ethnic cleansing and state terrorism.

"The international community should take strong action against such atrocious crimes of that regime and not allow it to manipulate humanitarian sentiments to pursue its illegitimate goals." He said Iran was of the view that the main aims behind tabling the resolution were "any thing but a true concern about genocide or the sufferings it brings about." "Had it not been the case, the main sponsors of the draft resolution must have referred to other cases of genocide perpetrated in various parts of the world in the past and at present, especially the crimes perpetrated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Palestine, Rwanda and the Balkans that have inflicted enormous suffering and pain to the mankind."

Previous Stories:
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  Reaction against Israeli crimes sought at UN   (12/2/2006)
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