This is very interesting to me.....

Iran to Host Scholarly Seminar on Holocaust

By NAZILA FATHI
Published: December 5, 2006
TEHRAN, Dec. 5 — Iran will hold a two-day conference on the Holocaust next week in which more than 60 scholars from some 30 countries will participate, the Foreign Ministry said today.

The seminar is in response to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments last year, when he said the scale of the genocide of the Jews had been exaggerated, the deputy foreign minister, Manouchehr Mohammadi, told a news conference today. Mr. Ahmadinejad first stirred outrage in the West in December last year, when he called the Holocaust a myth. He has repeatedly said that the Holocaust has been used as a tool of propaganda, and banned scholars here from research on the subject. The president also sent a 3,000-word letter to Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel outlining his arguments.

Mr. Mohammadi said next week’s conference will “provide the opportunity for scholars from both sides to give their papers in freedom and without pre-conceived ideas.” He refused to give the names of the 67 international scholars he said were attending the seminar, out of concern that their countries would prohibit them from coming.

He said the conference does not mean that Iran “denies the crimes of Hitler.”

“Since we are not accused and responsible for the Holocaust, we are an impartial judge,” Mr. Mohammadi said.