Mr. Rouhani, in an interview
on Tuesday with CNN, described the Holocaust as a “crime that the Nazis
committed towards the Jews” and called it “reprehensible and
condemnable.” It was a groundbreaking statement, given that his
predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, denied the systematic extermination of
Jews during World War II. Mr. Rouhani largely repeated his comments in a
meeting with news media executives on Wednesday.
But a semiofficial Iranian news agency accused CNN of fabricating
portions of Mr. Rouhani’s interview, saying he had not used the word
Holocaust or characterized the Nazi mass murder as “reprehensible.” Mr.
Rouhani spoke in Persian; officials at CNN said they used an interpreter
provided by the Iranian government for the interview, which was
conducted by Christiane Amanpour.
The dispute over his comments reflects the extreme delicacy of the
Holocaust as an issue in Iranian-American relations. More broadly, it
speaks to the political tightrope Mr. Rouhani is walking, trying to
negotiate a nuclear deal with the United States that will ease sanctions
to please everyday Iranians, without provoking a backlash by
hard-liners.
Such careful calculations prompted Mr. Rouhani to eschew a handshake
with President Obama at the United Nations General Assembly. After weeks
of conciliatory moves, including Iran’s freeing of political prisoners,
Iranian and American officials said they believed Mr. Rouhani needed to
placate hard-liners in Tehran, who would have bridled at images of an
Iranian leader greeting an American president.
“Shaking hands with Obama would have won Rouhani huge points with the
Iranian public, but it would have caused Iran’s hard-liners a
conniption,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on Iran at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Rouhani avoided other land mines
at the United Nations. His comments to the General Assembly, though less
inflammatory than those of Mr. Ahmadinejad, touched on similar themes
and grievances: the lack of respect for Iran, the West’s refusal to
recognize its right to enrich uranium, and the Israeli occupation of
Palestinian territory.
But when Mr. Rouhani sat down later with Ms. Amanpour, he moved into
fraught territory. Asked whether he shared his predecessor’s belief that
the Holocaust was a myth, Mr. Rouhani replied, according to CNN’s
translation, that he would leave it to historians to judge the
“dimensions of the Holocaust.”
But he added, “In general, I can tell you that any crime or — that
happens in history against humanity, including the crime that the Nazis
committed towards the Jews, as well as non-Jewish people — is
reprehensible and condemnable, as far as we are concerned.”
The Iranian news agency Fars, which has ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, posted its own translation
of Mr. Rouhani’s answer, and claimed that he did not use the word
“reprehensible” and that he said historians should be left to judge
“historical events,” not “the Holocaust.”
That translation resembles more closely the way Mr. Ahmadinejad used to
discuss the issue. In an interview with CNN in 2012, he said: “Whatever
event has taken place throughout history, or hasn’t taken place, I
cannot judge that. Why should I judge that?”
In what appeared to be an effort to head off criticism of Mr. Rouhani,
Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported Wednesday that the
chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi,
said the president had presented Iran’s clear and revolutionary stands
in his United Nations speech.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s refusal to recognize the Holocaust became a symbol of
Tehran’s implacable hostility. For Israel, it is evidence that Iran is
bent on its elimination, and this is why Israel is so determined to
prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
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