Iranian parliament seeks to question FM over Holocaust remarks

Ynet

Iran's semi-official news agency has reported that some seventy Iranian lawmakers have signed a letter to question the Islamic Republic's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif over his "passivity" regarding the Holocaust and the Israel.

“What is the reason for the passivity in your views about the issue of the illegitimate Israeli regime and the Holocaust,” the letter asked, Iran's Press TV reported.

The Iranian lawmakers also called Zarif’s remarks about Palestinians’ right to recognize Israel, as "passive."

Fars reported that senior Iranian lawmaker Mohammad Javad Karimi Qoddousi said “The signatures for this question have reached 70.”

"The question has been sent to the Foreign Ministry and it will be reviewed in the first session of the National Security (and Foreign Policy) Committee of Majlis,” said Karimi who sits on the committee – Iran's.

In the letter to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, the legislators refrenced Zarif’s interview with a German TV channel in February in which he called the Holocaust a “a horrifying tragedy” that “should never occur again."

It was not the first time Zarif made such comments, last September, in an interview to Georgre Stephanopoulos, Zarif said: “The Holocaust is not a myth. Nobody’s talking about a myth.”

“We condemn the killing of innocent people," he told Stephanopoulos, adding that the "Holocaust was a heinous crime, it was a genocide, it must never be allowed to be repeated, but that crime cannot be and should not be a justification to trample the rights of the Palestinian people for 60 years.”