PARIS (AFP) – French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Monday condemned the latest anti-Israeli outburst by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "unacceptable" and incompatible with Tehran’s ambition to be a respected regional player.
"I have been informed of comments, quoted by news agencies, in which the Iranian president speaks of the ‘annihilation of the Israeli regime’," Kouchner said in a statement.
"If these comments were indeed made, they are unacceptable. I condemn them in the strongest terms."
"Such statements are incompatible with the dialogue between cultures and civilisations to which we are attached and to Iran’s aspiration to play a preeminent role in the region."
"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israeli-Lebanese relations cannot be used as a pretext for questioning Israel’s fundamental right to exist."
Ahmadinejad on Sunday launched a new verbal attack on Israel, saying last summer’s war between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah started a "countdown" that will end with Lebanese and Palestinian militants destroying the Jewish state.
The Iranian president sparked outrage abroad shortly after coming to power in 2005 for saying that Israel should be "wiped from the map" and then repeatedly predicting that the state would disappear.
