International Conference To Review The Global Vision of The Holocaust - Reactions - International

International

Supranational bodies

• United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said "Denying historical facts, especially on such an important subject as the Holocaust, is just not acceptable. Nor is it acceptable to call for the elimination of any State or people. I would like to see this fundamental principle respected both in rhetoric and in practice by all the members of the international community. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan himself visited Iran and had a series of dialogues with the Iranian leadership and other senior-level people. Wherever and when, and if the situation requires me to do, I am also prepared to engage in dialogue with the Iranian leadership."
• During a visit to Iran in September 2006, then United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan also criticized this conference, saying " I think the tragedy of the Holocaust is an undeniable historical fact and we should really accept that fact and teach people what happened in World War II and ensure it is never repeated.".

States

• Belgium - Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said he "condemned the revisionistic and negationistic expressions (of Iran) and the repeated questioning of the right to exist for the state of Israel."

• Canada - Minister of Foreign affairs Peter MacKay said that the conference was "an outrage. It was an insult to Holocaust victims. It was an insult to their descendants. Canada's new government and I am sure many others in this House (of Commons) and around the globe condemn this conference, just as we have previously condemned the Iranian president's comments about the Holocaust as hateful."

• France - Prior to the conference, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said France would condemn the conference if participants used it for Holocaust denial. After the conference opened, Douste-Blazy stated to French RTL radio, "I reiterate our utter condemnation of this conference and the revisionist ideas it’s given a platform to." He cited this conference as further evidence of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "shocking" and "unacceptable" statements, and that this conference violated the 2005 United Nations resolution on Holocaust remembrance, which "rejects any denial of the Holocaust as a historic event, either in full or in part."

• Germany - Chancellor Angela Merkel, after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said "I would like to make clear that we reject with all our strength the conference taking place in Iran about the supposed nonexistence of the Holocaust." According to the New York Times, the "German government summoned the Iranian chargé d’affaires in Berlin to complain."

• Israel - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "denounced the conference before embarking on a two-day trip to Germany" calling the gathering "a sick phenomenon that shows the depths of hatred of the fundamentalist Iranian regime." Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, "commented on the Holocaust conference at a Knesset meeting ... and said, 'I didn’t come to this meeting to argue with the evil one from Tehran and his allies. He can’t erase the pain of the survivors.'"

• Poland - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on its website that Poland "expresses its strong disapproval of the conference, which contradicts the idea of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust established by the UN General Assembly, and celebrated on 27 January...Any attempt at contesting this truth arouses serious concern in Poland, where 6 million people were victims of the Nazi genocide". The Ministry also consigned informational material from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum to Iranian scholars, seeking to "deepen their knowledge" of the Holocaust.

• Russia - The Foreign Ministry said it had "protested against the distortion of history and attempts to conceal the truth regarding Nazi crimes, including the Holocaust."

• Sweden - Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt said: "The Iranian regime's statements about Israel and the questioning of the Holocaust are completely unacceptable, as well as Iran's questioning of the state of Israel's right to exist."

• Switzerland - Foreign Ministry spokesman Johann Aeschlimann said that the ministry condemned any querying of the right of Israel to exist, as had once again happened in Tehran, and of the Holocaust. "The Shoah is a historical fact. It is unacceptable to call this into question."

• UK - Prime Minister Tony Blair denounced the conference as "shocking beyond belief." Blair also said that it was "a symbol of sectarianism and hatred toward people of another religion. I mean, to go and invite the former head of the Ku Klux Klan to a conference in Tehran which disputes the millions of people who died in the Holocaust … what further evidence do you need that this regime is extreme?"

• United States - The State Department described the Iranian event as "yet another disgraceful act on this particular subject by the regime in Tehran. It is just flabbergasting that they continue — that the leadership of that regime continues to deny that six million-plus people were killed in the Holocaust," spokesman Sean McCormack said. The White House called it an "affront to the entire civilised world."

• Mexico - The government issued a rejection letter disapproving of the Conference and its results. In a statement on its website, the Foreign Secretary wrote that: "The government of Mexico, through the office of the Foreign Secretary, agrees with the international disapproval of the Iranian Conference on the Holocaust...and rejects all negation, either partial or total, of the Holocaust as historical fact."(translation)

Religious leaders

• Holy See - The Vatican condemned the conference.

• The Archbishop of Canterbury declared the conference a "disgrace", and called for the Holocaust to be memorialised in order to prevent its denial by future generations.

• Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Yonah Metzger called upon Jews worldwide to shun members of Neturei Karta who attended the conference and refuse them entrance to synagogues.