Holocaust Conference Begins in Iran

The gathering brought quick condemnation from Israel and Germany. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on the world to protest, terming the conference "a sick phenomenon."

German Parliament President Norbert Lammert protested the conference in a letter to Ahmadinejad, calling it anti-Semitic propaganda "under the pretext of scientific freedom."

Israel's official Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem, said the Tehran conference was "an effort to mainstream Holocaust denial" and "paint (an) extremist agenda with a scholarly brush."

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dismissed the criticism as "predictable," telling delegates there was "no logical reason for opposing this conference."

"If the official version of the Holocaust is thrown into doubt, then the identity and nature of Israel will be thrown into doubt," said Mottaki, whose ministry put together the conference. "And if, during this review, it is proved that the Holocaust was a historical reality, then what is the reason for the Muslim people of the region and the Palestinians having to pay the cost of the Nazis' crimes?"

A statement from Ahmadinejad was expected to be read to delegates Tuesday.

The conference fit in with Ahmadinejad's policy of seeking to cast Iran as an alternative power to the West _ in politics, science and academics. His anti-Israeli and anti-U.S. stances have brought out crowds of supporters during visits to Asia and Africa in recent years, and he has used those themes to rally support at home.

Ahmadinejad has said the Nazi genocide during World War II was a "myth" and "exaggerated." He has also repeatedly said Palestinians had to pay the price for European guilt over the Holocaust.

The Tehran gathering coincided with an independently convened academic conference on the Holocaust in Berlin, where historians affirmed the accuracy of the Nazi genocide data and questioned the motives of those behind the Tehran forum.

Wolfgang Benz, head of the Center for Research on Anti-Semitism at Berlin's Technical University, said people who deny the Holocaust "know perfectly well what happened."

"They want to use what happened _ through denying it _ to effect something else, to articulate the crude old anti-Semitism against Israel," he said. "It's about politics ... not about scholarship."