UN 'regrets' Ahmadinejad speech

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "misused" an anti-racism conference at which he called Israel a racist state.

The Iranian president's speech sparked wide condemnation and a walkout by EU delegates. Iran criticised Mr Ban's comments as "one-sided".

The UN said Mr Ahmadinejad had dropped language from his speech describing the Holocaust as "ambiguous and dubious".

Meanwhile, conference delegates adopted a resolution against racism.

UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said the declaration, which also covered issues such as xenophobia and intolerance, was an answer to Mr Ahmadinejad's tirade.

She said the document included a line stating that "the Holocaust must never be forgotten," and that Iran, as a participating state, had signed up to it.

But the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the controversy surrounding the Iranian president's comments turned what should have been a shining example of the UN at its best into a bitter and divisive farce.

'Very regretful'

The original text of Mr Ahmadinejad's speech said that after World War II, Western nations had "resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless, on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and dubious question of Holocaust".

AHMADINEJAD SPEECH

Version submitted: Following World War II, [Western nations] resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless, on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and dubious question of the Holocaust. (As published by the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran.)

Version delivered: After World War II, by exploiting the Holocaust and under the pretext of protecting the Jews they made a nation homeless with military expeditions and invasion. (BBC translation from speech transcript in Persian supplied by the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network.)

See Ahmadinejad speech: full text here