UN officials attempt to contain UN racism meet fallout

Geneva: Delegates reconvened at the UN anti-racist meeting on Tuesday as top UN officials sought to contain the fallout after anti-Israel remarks by Iran's president prompted a 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.

Pillay said delegates should not allow the five-day Durban Review Conference against racism to be "sabotaged" by "one person who has come with these unsavory remarks".

She described Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "somebody who traditionally makes obnoxious statements".

"Whether I consider that he sabotaged the conference. I don't think so, unless we let him do that. So here I would appeal that you focus on...all the important work that has been done for this conference," she said.

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.

Ban had told Ahmadinejad in a one on one meeting that the UN General Assembly had adopted resolutions "to revoke the equation of Zionism with racism and to reaffirm the historical facts of the Holocaust".

"It is deeply regrettable that my plea to look to the future of unity was not heeded by the Iranian president," Ban said.

Ahmadinejad, who has previously called for Israel to be wiped off the map, 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.

His remarks prompted 23 European Union delegations to walk out of the conference room in protest.

They also provoked a flurry of condemnation from Western leaders, with Washington calling on Iran to end its "hateful rhetoric".