Iran calls for Israel's "elimination"

Ahmadinejad was speaking at an emergency session of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Putrajaya, Malaysia, which had been organised to discuss Israeli attacks in Lebanon. His remarks were carried in full by the state-run news agency ISNA.

He described the Jewish state as "fake" and said that it lacked any "legal foundation or legitimacy".

"The United States and Britain and a considerable number of Western government do not have any limits on the extent of their political, propaganda, financial, and military backing for this regime," he said.

He said the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which has been in intense battle with Israel over the past three weeks, had become the "symbol of Muslim resistance".

"The main solution is the elimination of the Zionist regime," Ahmadinejad said.

He called on Arab and Islamic governments to immediately halt their overt and covert political and economic ties with Tel Aviv.

The hard-line Iranian president demanded that the U.S. and Britain pay compensation to Lebanon because they had supported the Israeli offensive. "These two governments must be held accountable for their crimes in Lebanon," he said.

He called on the OIC to condemn the U.S. and Britain for their "key role" in the conflict, and added that the U.S. did not have "competence" to be a member of the United Nations Security Council.

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