TEHARAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticized 23 European delegates who walked out on his speech at UN anti-racism conference in protest at his criticism of Israel
"Why is it that the so-called advocates of freedom of information fear hearing other people's opinions?" the Iranian president asked.
Although his speech prompted a walkout by around 23 delegates, the UN assembly hall received applause from those delegations that had remained seated.
"The world today needs convergence. We need to construct a new world on the basis of friendship and mutual respect," Ahmadinejad said in a Geneva meeting with Ramsey Clark, former US attorney general and winner of the 2008 UN Human Rights Award.
"It is not important where people are from, Palestinian or American or even Iranian. All of the peace-loving people of the world irrespective of their origin must join the cause of justice," he continued.
Clark told Ahmadinejad that logic dominated his speech and that many Americans would agree with his stance if they were allowed to judge for themselves.
Clark is among a handful of former US officials that have criticized Israel and unconditional White House support for Tel Aviv.
"We've had 50 years of assault on Palestinian rights. I think they are the most terrorized… at least with the Iraqi people…. They're the most terrorized people on earth… and have been for so many years," he has said.
"Practically every Palestinian lives in constant harassment, threat of violence, humiliation. It's been that way for a long long time."
But pressures from pro-Israel lobbies have led to objections to Ahmadinejad's speech.
His remarks prompted 23 European Union delegations to walk out of the conference room in protest.
President Barack Obama "disagrees vehemently" with Ahmadinejad, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.
Gibbs added that it vindicated the decision by the country's first African-American president to shun the conference.
The walkout mirrored the last such conference against racism held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 when Israeli and US delegates stormed off over comments by delegates equating Zionism with racism.
Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband described Ahmadinejad's comments as "offensive, inflammatory and utterly unacceptable" -- but said London would not leave the conference.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, one of the few Europeans to hear Ahmadinejad out, said the Iranian president had been playing to a domestic audience ahead of a June 12 vote.
The Vatican delegation, present as observers only, also stayed in the conference hall.
As delegates reconvene at the UN anti-racism meeting Tuesday, top UN officials sought to contain the fallout after an anti-Israel onslaught by Iran's president prompted a mass walkout.
"I noted that what was said in the president's speech has had nothing to do with the substance of the conference, and so it should also have nothing to do with the results," Navi Pillay, who is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters in Geneva.
"So here I would appeal that you focus on ... all the important work that has been done for this conference."
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also sought to turn public attention back to the key aims of the meeting.
Ban pointed out that member states had "come a long way" in forging an agreement on a draft declaration on fighting racism, xenophobia and intolerance that is expected to be adopted by the remaining states in the meeting.
"This is not the end of the process, this is just the beginning of the process. We have to continue and to build on this," Ban told journalists.
But Ban had told Ahmadinejad in a one on one meeting before the Iranian leader spoke that the UN General Assembly had adopted resolutions "to revoke the equation of Zionism with racism".
Ahmadinejad criticised the creation of a "totally racist government in occupied Palestine" in 1948, calling it "the most cruel and repressive racist regime.
"The (UN) Security Council helped stabilise this occupation regime and supported it for the past 60 years, giving them a free hand to continue their crimes," he said on the first day of the conference.
Meanwhile, newspapers in Iran on Tuesday praised Ahmadinejad's tirade.
"Cry for justice in the heart of Europe: Ahmadinejad angered Western racists," read the headline in the government newspaper Iran.
Leading daily Kayhan wrote: "Welcoming Ahmadinejad and hating racist Israel" in Geneva.
Among the headlines in other newspapers were "Applause for Iranian logic in Geneva" in Vatan Emrouz, and "Geneva's number one man: Iran president's speech drew the ire of Zionists" in Jam-e Jam.
"I admire Ahmadinejad's position against the Zionist regime," conservative Tehran MP Ali Motahari said in Iran newspaper.
"It was important to inform the world of Islamic republic's stance against the Zionist regime and the president managed that very well," he said of the Geneva conference.
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