Region | Iran
Germany likens Ahmadinejad to Hitler
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a rising Adolf Hitler with his stand on Iran's nuclear programme, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday.
- Agencies
- Published: 00:00 February 4, 2006
Munich: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a rising Adolf Hitler with his stand on Iran's nuclear programme, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday.
Merkel said the threat of Iran's nuclear ambitions is similar to Germany's Nazi regime, adding that the world must act now to prevent it building an atomic bomb.
"In the early 1930s when National Socialism (Nazism) was on the rise, there were many who said 'It's only rhetoric - don't get excited'," she told a forum of world leaders.
Iran "has blatantly crossed the red line", she said. "We must prevent Iran from developing its nuclear programme."
"A president who questions Israel's right to exist, a president who denies the Holocaust cannot expect to receive any tolerance from Germany," she said.
Merkel's comments came as the United Nations' atomic watchdog voted in Vienna to report Iran to the UN Security Council.
Speaking after Merkel, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rusmfeld said the Iranian regime "is today the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism".
"The world does not want, and must work together to prevent, a nuclear Iran," he said.
Ahmadinejad has not allayed concerns in the West with recent comments calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map".
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