Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says in an interview with NPR that the Holocaust is a "historical event" and that Iranians are free to criticize the government. He also addresses questions about human rights and nuclear aspirations in his country, and praises President Obama's break with policies of previous U.S. administrations.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says in an interview with NPR that the Holocaust is a "historical event" and that Iranians are free to criticize the government. He also addresses questions about human rights and nuclear aspirations in his country, and praises President Obama's break with policies of previous U.S. administrations.
Under fire for his repeated denials of the Holocaust, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
I think Ahmadinejad need to get a new mind.
called the deaths of millions of Jews during World War II a "historical event" during an interview with NPR's Morning Edition to air Friday, but he quickly dismissed the accounts of Holocaust survivors as "claims."
"Why should everyone be forced to accept the opinion of just a few on a historic event?" he asked host Steve Inskeep.
Ahmadinejad stirred up controversy again last week by using a national televised speech in Iran to call the Holocaust a "lie and a mythical claim."
He told Inskeep: "I'm not a historian. Most certainly, I've read a lot of books about this issue, and that is why I have questions about it. My questions are very clear ones. We should allow researchers to examine all sorts of questions because it's quite clear that when they do, they will reach different conclusions."
In the interview, he complained that the event is given too much prominence, particularly by many politicians who use the Holocaust to justify actions that hurt Palestinians.
"I can see that genocide is happening now under the pretext of an event that happened 60 years ago," he said, speaking through an interpreter. "Why should the Palestinian people make up for it?"
The Holocaust discussion was one portion of a wide-ranging interview, conducted on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Ahmadinejad also discussed the fate of demonstrators in Iran who have been protesting the recent election, praised President Obama for what Ahmadinejad views as criticism of previous U.S. administrations, and addressed his country's nuclear program.
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