WASHINGTON, Feb 13: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday that anger sparked by the sacrilegious cartoons could spin out of control and urged governments, especially Iran and Syria, to ‘act responsibly’.
“If governments do not act responsibly, we could face a sense of outrage that spins out of control and particularly if people continue to incite it,” she said on the ABC television program ‘This Week’.
“It is well known that Iran and Syria bring protesters into the streets when they wish, to make a point,” she said.
Ms Rice, in a separate interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said Washington had lodged a complaint in which it told Damascus ‘these are incited riots, and they need to be Controlled’.
“The Syrian and Iranian governments have very good control of these things,” Ms Rice added.
She mentioned a plan in Iran to retaliate for the cartoons by launching a contest to caricature the Holocaust.
“I would like to have heard from the Iranian government ... not a threat to start publishing Holocaust cartoons, but rather to say that people should not resort to violence,” she said.
“If that’s not incitement, I don’t know what is,” Ms Rice added on the CBS program.
She said she personally found the cartoons offensive. At issue, she added, were issues of both press freedom and press responsibility.
Eleven people have been killed during protests in the Middle East, Asia and Africa over the cartoons, which many Muslims see as blasphemous and an attack on Islam.
On Wednesday, Ms Rice, at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Israel, had singled out Iran and Syria for what she said was stirring Muslim anger against the West over the issue. Both countries are at odds with the West over a range of problems.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had said in response he was unaware of any evidence that Iran and Syria were manipulating protesters.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on CNN’s “Late Edition” that Ms Rice ‘has a point’ in saying that Syrian and Iran were inciting violence.—Reuters
