Netanyahu: Iranian Election 'Will Change Nothing'
The presidential elections in Iran on Friday will bring about no significant change in Tehran's policies, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Warsaw.
"These so-called elections taking place in Iran, well unfortunately, they will change nothing of significance," Netanyahu said Wednesday, adding the Tehran "regime will continue to be led by one man, one ruler (who) will continue Iran's quest for nuclear weapons."
Some 50.5 million voters are eligible to vote for a successor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, under whose presidency Iran has been isolated internationally over its controversial nuclear drive.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a cleric who has final say on all key state issues, including nuclear activities, has urged a high turnout on Friday.
Israel's Netanyahu has long called for decisive action to stop what he claims is a nuclear program by Tehran aimed at achieving military capability, something Iran flatly denies.
"This is a regime that is building nuclear weapons to annihilate Israel's six million Jews," Netanyahu said at the Wednesday joint press conference with Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
"We will not allow this to happen. We will never allow another Holocaust," the Israeli leader said.
After Wednesday's talks with Tusk in Warsaw, Netanyahu will visit the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau on Thursday for the unveiling of a new exhibition at the museum in southern Poland, curated by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust institute.
Around 1.1 million people, mostly Jews from across Europe, died at the hand of Nazi Germany at Auschwitz between 1940-45.
The infamous death camp was a key element of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's campaign of genocide against European Jews which claimed six million lives during World War II.
Source: Agence France Presse
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