23536
Bluelight Crew
Iran's vice president used the podium of an international conference on drugs in Tehran yesterday to deliver a baldly anti-Semitic speech, saying that the Talmud, a central text of Judaism, was responsible for the spread of illegal drugs around the world.
European diplomats in attendance during the speech by the vice president, Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, expressed shock. Even Iranian participants in the conference, co-sponsored by Iran and the United Nations, privately wondered at the Iranian government's motivation for allowing such a speech, despite its longstanding antagonism toward Israel.
More than 25,000 Jews live in Iran, and they are recognized as a religious minority, with a representative in parliament.
The speech seemed bound to further isolate Iran just days before a new set of onerous Western economic sanctions, notably a European embargo on Iranian oil, is set to be enforced because of the longstanding dispute over Iran's nuclear program. Iran says their nuclear program is peaceful; Western nations and Israel suspect it is a cover to develop the ability to make nuclear weapons.
Mr Rahimi, second in line to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the Talmud "teaches to `destroy everyone who opposes the Jews."
"Zionists" are in firm control of the drug trade, Mr Rahimi said, asking foreign dignitaries to research his claims. "Zionists" is Iran's ideological terminology for Jews who support the state of Israel.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict. They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in drugs trade," he said.
What made his remarks even more striking is that Iran's fight against the illegal drug trade is one of the few issues in which the Islamic republic can count on Western sympathy. Iran's battle to stop the flow of drugs coming in from neighbouring Afghanistan has often been mentioned as a potential field of cooperation during negotiations between world powers and Iran over the country's nuclear programme.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0627/breaking36.html
European diplomats in attendance during the speech by the vice president, Mohammad-Reza Rahimi, expressed shock. Even Iranian participants in the conference, co-sponsored by Iran and the United Nations, privately wondered at the Iranian government's motivation for allowing such a speech, despite its longstanding antagonism toward Israel.
More than 25,000 Jews live in Iran, and they are recognized as a religious minority, with a representative in parliament.
The speech seemed bound to further isolate Iran just days before a new set of onerous Western economic sanctions, notably a European embargo on Iranian oil, is set to be enforced because of the longstanding dispute over Iran's nuclear program. Iran says their nuclear program is peaceful; Western nations and Israel suspect it is a cover to develop the ability to make nuclear weapons.
Mr Rahimi, second in line to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the Talmud "teaches to `destroy everyone who opposes the Jews."
"Zionists" are in firm control of the drug trade, Mr Rahimi said, asking foreign dignitaries to research his claims. "Zionists" is Iran's ideological terminology for Jews who support the state of Israel.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict. They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in drugs trade," he said.
What made his remarks even more striking is that Iran's fight against the illegal drug trade is one of the few issues in which the Islamic republic can count on Western sympathy. Iran's battle to stop the flow of drugs coming in from neighbouring Afghanistan has often been mentioned as a potential field of cooperation during negotiations between world powers and Iran over the country's nuclear programme.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0627/breaking36.html
