TEHRAN, Jan 29: Iran on Sunday invited British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Tehran to take part in a planned conference on the Holocaust, branded a “myth” by the Islamic republic’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“It would be good for Mr Blair to participate in the Holocaust conference in Tehran,” foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

“He can also contribute with an article. If he wants to defend the Holocaust in that article, he can do so. We will give him the time to read out his article so others can hear his point of view,” Asefi said, adding the conference was slated for the coming spring.

On Monday, Blair lashed out at the planned meeting as “shocking, ridiculous, stupid” — and said Ahmadinejad should come and see the evidence of the Holocaust himself in the countries of Europe.

Asefi accused the West of making an unnecessary fuss about the proposed Foreign Ministry-sponsored conference.

“Why are some Western countries so worried about it? Such remarks are against freedom of thought,” he said.

“In Mr Blair’s speech there was an invitation for the Iranian president to go there and see the places himself. We have to see when the president has time for it,” Asefi replied.

Iran’s foreign minister has already said he was willing to send a team of independent investigators to visit former Nazi deaths camps across Europe.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said these teams would comprise people “who are not sympathetic to those who committed the crimes and who are not sympathetic to the Zionist regime (Israel).”

Iran has presented the planned conference as an exercise in free speech, where Asefi said Blair “can say the kind of things he cannot say in London.”

“For half a century, the defenders of the Holocaust have used every newspaper and tribune to defend their position, and now is the time for them to listen to others,” Asefi said.

Ahmadinejad’s comments have already been condemned by the UN Security Council.—AFP