Iran opens Holocaust conference

Tehran: Iran on Monday opened a controversial government-sponsored conference on the existence of the Holocaust.

Event organisers said that the two-day event will allow domestic and foreign "researchers" to question the Holocaust.

"The first question to be posed is: did the Holocaust actually happen or not? And the second one is: if it did happen, what was the scale of it? The allegation that six million Jews were killed or burnt in this event, is it true or not?" said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mohammadi.

Germany, Israel and the United States - where denying the Holocaust is illegal - have condemned the conference.

However, it has the support of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had described the Holocaust a myth.

History books recorded that some six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.