Tehran - Tehran on Sunday said that the scheduled Middle
East peace summit would fail and have no tangible outcome for the
Palestinian cause.
'We have had numerous conferences like this in the past and all of
them produced nothing and failed,' Foreign Ministry Spokesman
Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said in his weekly press briefing in Tehran.
'Also this one will just lead to another erosion of Palestinian
rights,' Hosseini added.
Referring to the pro-Israeli stance of the West, the spokesman
termed the initiators of Tuesday's international Middle East peace
conference in Annapolis, Maryland, as 'no objective mediators.'
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week termed the scheduled
Middle East peace summit as 'futile and bound to fail.'
'The era when some countries consider themselves as authorized to
decide about the fate of the Palestinian nation is over as such an
issue can only be settled with the real representatives of
Palestine,' Ahmadinejad said, alluding to the Hamas group.
In Washington, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino dismissed the
Iranian comments as US President George W Bush hosts the conference
aimed at tapping into moderate political forces in the Middle East to
bring about a peace settlement while trying to marginalize extremist
groups like Palestinian Hamas.
'It is not surprising that a country like Iran is concerned that
extremist elements are being targeted,' Perino said.
Ahmadinejad warned the regional Arab states 'not to fall into a
trap of this so-called autumn conference' and to not allow 'enemies'
to prepare grounds for misuse.
'Today the Zionist regime is on its way towards collapse and
therefore the enemies and those who created this fraudulent regime
want to hold the autumn conference for boosting its spirit,' the
president said.
Iran does not acknowledge the Israeli state and wants a
Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital to be established.
Tehran accuses Washington of seeking to strengthen Israel and
undermine the influence of the Muslim states in the Middle East.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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