Spring Break
Iran's leader sparks walkout at U.N. conference
Frank Jordans - Associated Press
Issue date: 4/21/09 Section: News
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The meeting turned chaotic almost from the start when two protesters in rainbow wigs tossed red clown noses at Ahmadinejad as he began his speech with a Muslim prayer. A Jewish student group from France said it had been trying to convey "the masquerade that this conference represents."
Ahmadinejad - the first government official to take the floor - restarted and delivered his speech for more than a half-hour, saying the United States and Europe had helped establish Israel after World War II at the expense of Palestinians.
"They resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering," he said.
That prompted the walkout by some 40 diplomats from Britain and France and other European Union countries. The Europeans had threatened to leave the conference if it descended into anti-Semitism or other rhetoric harshly critical of Israel, which marred the U.N.'s last conference on racism eight years ago in South Africa.
The United States and eight other Western countries were already boycotting the event Monday, the eve of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, because of concerns about its fairness.
Ahmadinejad also accused Israel of being the "most cruel and repressive racist regime" and blamed the U.S. invasion of Iraq on a Zionist conspiracy.
Most of his rhetoric was not new but its timing and high profile could complicate U.S. efforts to warm ties with the Islamic republic: Alejandro Wolff, the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations, denounced what he called "the Ahmadinejad spectacle."
"We call on the Iranian leadership to show much more measured, moderate, honest and constructive rhetoric when dealing with issues in the region, and not this type of vile, hateful, inciteful speech that we all saw," Wolff told reporters at the U.N. in New York.
Protesters holding placards reading "This is a circus. A racist cannot fight racism," repeatedly interrupted the speech with shouts of "Shame! shame!" and "Racist! racist!"
Later, about 100 members of mainly pro-Israel and Jewish groups tried to block Ahmadinejad's entrance to a scheduled news conference.
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon met with Ahmadinejad before his speech and said he had counseled the Iranian leader to avoid dividing the conference. Ban later said he was disappointed Ahmadinejad had used his speech "to accuse, divide and even incite," directly opposing the aim of the meeting.
"It was a very troubling experience for me as a secretary-general," he told reporters. "It was a totally unacceptable situation."
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