President of Iran toned down speech

GENEVA: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dropped language describing the Holocaust as "ambiguous and dubious" from a speech attacking Israel at a United Nations racism conference, the UN said yesterday.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday that he had met with Ahmadinejad before his speech and reminded him that the UN had adopted resolutions "to revoke the equation of Zionism with racism and to reaffirm the historical facts of the Holocaust".

Ahmadinejad's accusation that the West used the Holocaust as a "pretext" for aggression against Palestinians still provoked walkouts by a stream of delegates. But others, including those from the Vatican, stayed in the room because they said he stopped short of denying the Holocaust.