TEHRAN (AFP)— Iran will defy international condemnation on Monday by holding a conference on the Holocaust that will allow researchers to question whether the mass slaughter of Jews in World War II took place.

Iran says that nothing will be taboo at the conference, which will be attended by some 60 “researchers” from foreign countries including Britain, Germany and the United States as well as by Iranians.

The meeting’s purported aim, according to the foreign ministry, is to answer “questions” about the Holocaust posed by fiercely anti-Israeli President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He has repeatedly questioned the veracity of the Holocaust, at one point describing the genocide of six million Jews in World War II as a “myth” and casting doubt on the scale of the killings.

Iran insists that it is well positioned to hold a conference on the Holocaust and angrily rejects charges of anti-Semitism, pointing to the continued existence in Iran of 25,000 Jews.

“After the Iranian president outlined issues related to the unreality of the Holocaust and the exploitation by the Zionist regime of his comments, the foreign ministry decided to hold a Holocaust study seminar,” a ministry statement said.

Forum for ‘scholars’

Officials say “Study of the Holocaust: A Global Perspective” is not aimed at denying the Holocaust but at providing a forum for “scholars” to air their opinions without fear of taboos.

“Ahmadinejad asked did the Holocaust happen or not. And if it happened why are scholars prevented from doing research on this and why are revisionists thrown into prison?” Deputy Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi said.

The conference will “without any preconceived ideas, provide the atmosphere for scholars and researchers from both sides to give their papers in the utmost freedom,” he added.

The foreign ministry has been at pains to emphasise the “scientific” nature of the meeting.

“The people invited… are experts who will present their contradictory points of view. The conference is of a scientific and research nature,” said spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini.

However after a call by Ahmadinejad for Israel to be “wiped from the map” and amid continued concerns over the Iranian nuclear programme, Western countries have lost little time in savaging the event.

“As I understand it, this meeting is really focused on highlighting those people who deny that there was, in fact, a Holocaust,” US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday. Related stories
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“In that regard, it’s just yet another disgraceful act on this particular subject by the regime in Tehran,” he said.

German reaction

Germany summoned the Iranian charge d’affaires and said it condemned “any attempt, in the past or in the future, to give a forum to those who relativise or question the Holocaust.”

The conference is the latest brush with controversy for the Islamic republic, which is already facing UN sanctions for failing to agree to halt sensitive nuclear work.

Iran has refused to give the names of some 60 foreign “scholars” it says will attend the event, saying they risk having their passports confiscated by their home countries if their attendance is known.

Historians of the Third Reich, basing their figures on original Nazi documents, generally believe around six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, although some estimates are slightly lower or higher. Hitler’s regime also killed millions of non-Jews. Related story
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It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in a dozen European countries, including Germany and Austria.

David Irving, a British revisionist who attempted to argue that the toll was greatly exaggerated and to play down Hitler’s role, was jailed by a Vienna court in February for three years for denying the Holocaust.