Statement by UN Secretary-General on Iran's President Ahmadinejad Speech

[Better Believe It]

Statement by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the remarks by the President of Iran at the Durban Review Conference
20 April 2009

I deplore the use of this platform by the Iranian President to accuse, divide and even incite. This is the opposite of what this Conference seeks to achieve. This makes it significantly more difficult to build constructive solutions to the very real problem of racism.

It is deeply regrettable that my plea to look to the future of unity was not heeded by the Iranian President. At my earlier meeting with him, I stressed the importance of the Conference to galvanize the will of the international community toward the common cause of fight against racism.

I further stressed the need to look to the future, not to the past of divisiveness. In this regard, I reminded the President that the UN General Assembly had adopted the resolutions to revoke the equation of Zionism with racism and to reaffirm the historical facts of the Holocaust respectively.

We must all turn away from such a message in both form and substance. We must join hands and work together to achieve a constructive, substantive agenda to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

http://www.un.org/durbanreview2009/coverage/press/pr_20-04-09_iran.shtml

[Better Believe It]

1. The Obama administration should keep quiet on this.

How can they comment on a UN Conference they are boycotting?

If they were not boycotting their views could be presented at the UN Conference and would be listened to by the delegations and the world community.

[LooseWilly]

2. Well, that was a strongly worded letter.

Of course, now that "the UN General Assembly had adopted the resolutions to revoke the equation of Zionism with racism and to reaffirm the historical facts of the Holocaust respectively", the US, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, and whatever other countries I've forgotten no longer have any excuse not to attend... unless they're just racists. :tinfoilhat:

I suppose there're gonna be some more strongly worded letters in the mail very soon...