Middle East/Iran

Iran says it would support Palestinian peace deal with "enemy"

Article published on the 2009-04-27 Latest update 2009-04-27 16:29 TU

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad receives a Palestinian scarf during the International Conference of the Prosecutors of Islamic Countries last week
(Photo: Reuters)

A Palestinian peace deal that involves dual statehood with Israel would be "fine" with Iran, says the country's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran would not seek to oppose a two-state solution for peace between the Palestinian people and Israel, despite Ahmadinejad's verbal attacks on the Jewish nation.

Ahmadinejad said a peace deal for statehood alongside Israel would be "fine with us", and that Iran would not seek to determine the grounds for any such deal.

"Whatever decision they take - we will support that," he said in an interview taped in Tehran and broadcast on US television.

But Ahmadinejad stopped short of saying Iran would recognise the Jewish nation as part of a two-state solution.

The Iranian leader this month prompted a mass walk-out of delegates at an UN anti-racism conference in Geneva when he dubbed Israel "the most cruel and repressive racist regime".

US President Barack Obama has pushed for relations to be re-opened with Iran, in particular nuclear dialogue, but Ahmadinejad says talks cannot proceed in the absence of a clear agenda.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei previously set the bar high for statehood by saying that a referendum open to all Palestinians - including post-1948 refugees, but excluding immigrant Jews - was the only way to decide the land's future.