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| Germany seeks unlikely joint EU condemnation
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As Iran’s president continues to threaten Israel, Germany has said it is pushing for a joint condemnation by EU leaders at their next summit meeting in Brussels this week.
On Monday president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood by his latest controversial attack against Israel and boldly asserted the world was "on the verge of change".
He said Western powers "know that any change in Palestine will change the world’s political, economic and cultural arrangement, and therefore they support the Zionist regime’s most wicked deeds."
"The world is on the verge of change, and more than before we can hear the sound of this present unstable order breaking down," the student news agency ISNA quoted him as telling a conference entitled "Supporting the Islamic Revolution of Palestine".
"If the massacre of the Jews in Europe is true and used as an excuse to support Zionists, why should the Palestinians pay the price?" he added, repeating a comment that has widely been interpreted as support for deniers of the Holocaust.
Ahmadinejad, who in October said arch-enemy Israel should be "wiped off the map", last week declared that if Germany and Austria believed Jews were massacred during WWII, an Israeli state should be established on their soil.
 If the massacre of the Jews in Europe is true and used as an excuse to support Zionists, why should the Palestinians pay the price?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad | His comments again drew widespread international condemnation, and the UN Security Council also issued a statement to "condemn the remarks about Israel and the denial of the Holocaust attributed to Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad".
Ahmadinejad said "Western policy in regards to Palestine has always been in favour of the Zionist regime and harmed the Islamic world, and they cannot be the mediators and judges on the issue."
"All Islamic countries must strive to change the Islamic world’s stance after 60 or 70 years in a passive state," he said.
Elected with the task to restore the "purity" of the Islamic revolution, Ahmadinejad’s hardline worried European countries seeking to strike a deal over Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.
German pressures
Germany is pushing for a joint declaration at the next European Council in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday, to condemn the Iranian president’s statements, according to the German government spokesman.
In the ambassador’s absence, the Iranian charge d’affaires was summoned Monday morning to the German ministry of foreign affairs.
The deputy spokesperson of the German government, Thomas Steg, stressed that Berlin "is trying and wishes that on the next European Council, the European countries condemns in a joint statement" Ahmadinejad’s statements.
Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, today presented the German project to his colleagues in Brussels and says he has good hope it will be accepted.
Calling back our diplomatic representative is not something envisioned, it is way too strong, what kind of sanctions can you have anyway against the statements of a crazy man?
EU diplomatic source | Steg said these were "terrible and unacceptable declarations" for Germany.
Germany’s vice-chancellor, Franz Muntefering, announced on Sunday that Germany will plead for "political consequences" from the EU and the UN.
"Statements will one day be followed by deeds," Muntefering said in a meeting with the president of the German Central Council of Jews, Paul Spiegel.
According to Steg, the message delivered to the Iranian government is that these declarations “are totally unacceptable", "because they not only deny the right of the existence of the state of Israel, but they also contain elements denying the Holocaust, which is, of course, totally unacceptable."
EU not to sanction Iran
A joint declaration is not on the agenda of the next European summit meeting. After Monday’s meeting of the EU foreign ministers, no sign of a possible joint statement condemning Ahmadinejad statement was in sight.
According to a EU diplomatic source, several countries would oppose such a joint statement.
Furthermore, according to the same source, the latest declarations of the Iranian president should not have any practical consequences. "For example, the EU could postpone the next round of negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue," the source told EJP.
"Calling back our diplomatic representative is not something envisioned, it is way too strong, what kind of sanctions can you have anyway against the statements of a crazy man?"
"We are right now in a ’declaration war’, and the EU has to have strong ground in order to engage sanctions against Iran, declarations are not enough to provoke sanctions, the EU needs deeds," the source underlined.
"Again, if any sanctions should be aimed at Iran, it will be with a little ’s’, and as I said, it will be very symbolic," the source added.
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