TEHRAN, 9 July 2006 — A regional conference on security in Iraq opened in Iran yesterday with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling on Islamic countries to mobilize against Israel and “remove” the “Zionist regime.”
“The basic problem in the Islamic world is the existence of the Zionist regime, and the Islamic world and the region must mobilize to remove this problem,” the president said at the opening of the two-day conference.
“Today there is a strong will... to remove the Zionist regime and implement a legal Palestinian regime all over Palestine. The continued survival of this regime (Israel) means nothing but suffering for the region,” Ahmadinejad said.
The foreign ministers of Arab states attending the conference also condemned Israel for its “increasing aggression against the Palestinian people” and attacked the “silence” of the international community, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said in a statement.
Foreign ministers of Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria are attending the conference.
On his arrival in Tehran, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said everyone was optimistic about the success of Iraq’s new government and its announced program of national reconciliation in spite of the country passing through difficult times.
