MOSCOW (Agencies)
Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman ruled out plans to bomb Tehran on Wednesday as Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated his anti-Israel stance by calling the Holocaust a "big deception."
"Israel is not planning to bomb Iran," Lieberman, who grew up in the Soviet Union, told reporters in Russian when asked about the potential threat from Iran, addressing speculation it might launch a military operation to destroy the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
"We do not have a need" to carry out attacks on Iran, he said. "Israel is a strong country and we can defend ourselves."
" The identity of the liberal democracy has been exposed to the world by its protection of the most criminal regime in the history of humanity, the Zionist regime, by using the big deception of the Holocaust " Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Many analysts have speculated that Israel could launch a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, which could provoke retaliatory missile strikes.
Though Iran rejects Western accusations its nuclear program is aimed at making bombs, Tehran has vowed to retaliate for any attack with missile strikes against Israel and U.S. Gulf assets.
Israel has repeatedly described Iran's nuclear program as a threat to its existence.
Lieberman added that Iran is the main factor behind instability in the Middle East, adding: "This is not an Israeli problem." |
Ahmadinejad described Israel as a cruel and racist regime In the Meantime, Ahmadinejad, who is seeking a second term in office, reiterated his anti-Israel stance by calling the Holocaust a "big deception" and that liberal democracies of the world have degraded "human values."
"The identity of the liberal democracy has been exposed to the world by its protection of the most criminal regime in the history of humanity, the Zionist regime, by using the big deception of the Holocaust," the Iranian state television news website quoted him as saying.
Ahmadinejad was speaking to a gathering of 600 international scholars who have arrived in Tehran to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which falls on Thursday. |
