EU condemns 'uncivilised' Iranian comments on Israel

About time...

BRUSSELS, Feb 25, 2008 (AFP) — The European Union condemned "in the strongest terms" Monday remarks by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials about Israel, after the killing of a top Hezbollah commander.

"Their comments ... against Israel are unacceptable, damaging and uncivilised," a statement from the EU's Slovenian presidency said.

"The EU calls on Iran to stop hostile rhetoric and refrain from all threats towards other states, members of the international community," it said.

Last week, Ahmadinejad called Israel a "dirty microbe" and "savage animal", as Iran stepped up its rhetoric against the Jewish state after the murder of a top Hezbollah commander.

"World powers have created a black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and have unleashed it like a savage animal on the nations of the region," he said at a rally, in remarks broadcast on state television.

The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari -- who along with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was also singled out by the EU -- had predicted the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah would destroy Israel.

"The EU calls again on the Iranian leadership to support the need for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to the search for lasting peace between Israel and its neighbours," the statement said.

Israel has denied involvement in the killing in a car bombing on February 12 in Damascus of Imad Mughnieh, a top Hezbollah commander hailed by Iran as a great martyr.