Britons to Attend Iran's Holocaust Conference

Iran announced yesterday details of a conference questioning whether the Holocaust really happened, prompted by an international outcry a year ago when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis as "myth" fabricated to justify Israel.

The foreign ministry said "intellectuals and researchers" from 30 countries - including Britain - would attend Studying the Holocaust: An international view, in Tehran on Monday and Tuesday.

The idea for the gathering was dismissed earlier this year as "shocking, ridiculous and stupid" by Tony Blair. Iran responded by inviting him to attend.

A Foreign Office spokesman said it had no record of who was going. "I think the government's views on Iran's comments regarding the Holocaust are well known but it is not up to us who travels to Iran."

Participants will consider documentary, pictorial, physical and demographic evidence in what Iranian officials depict as an academic investigation to establish the Holocaust's authenticity and whether the reported number of victims was exaggerated. Organisers say it will include submissions for and against. It will also focus on the plight of the Palestinians.

The conference will have six panel discussions and an open forum. It will discuss the capacity of Nazi death camps and the impact of the second world war on other national and ethnic groups. Iranian officials say Jewish suffering is played up at the expense of other victims. Manouchehr Mohammadi, the foreign ministry's research and education officer, said the conference was intended as a platform for open discussion of the Holocaust, which Iran claims is denied in the west.

"Our aim is to scientifically study the Holocaust and listen to both sides before reaching a conclusion," Mr Mohammadi said. "This issue has a crucial role regarding the west's policies towards the countries of the Middle East, especially the Palestinians. Iran isn't against or for. We weren't involved in this event so we can be a neutral judge. It is important for us to know the answer so that we can process our stances to issues in this region. If we conclude that the Holocaust happened, we will admit it but we are still going to ask why Palestinians have to pay." He said it would not be a forum for anti-semites or neo-Nazis, and rabbis would attend. "Our policy doesn't mean we want to defend the crimes of Hitler."

Mr Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and has said its inhabitants should go to Europe or Alaska.

Michael Rosen, of the Community Security Trust, which works to safeguard Jews in Britain, said he was aware of the event but that it was not clear who was planning to attend from the UK. Karen Pollock, of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: "To hold a state-sponsored conference questioning the truth of the Holocaust is not only deeply disturbing but a huge insult to Holocaust survivors and the families of Holocaust victims."