Islamic Republic News Agency Mishap

I know I've been posting a lot about Iran lately, but I just can't help myself. Ahmadinejad really makes this blogging thing easy. Well, he and the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) do, anyway.

Ahmadinejad has been getting tons of press due to his comments about Israel. And he should. As I've said before, the guy is a nut job. With Iran already in a delicate nuclear negotiations situation, pissing off Europe doesn't seem like such a good idea.

How would you like to be the head of his Public Relations team? Talk about job-related stress. I feel for them; I really do. The most recent claim made by Hamid Reza Asefi alleges that the president's comments about Israel were severely distorted. Take a look:

TEHRAN, Dec. 11--Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Sunday he was surprised by the international reactions to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks at summit of Muslim states in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
“President Ahmadinejad has said if Europeans feel they mistreated the Jews and want to make up for it, they should compensate them at their own expense. This is nothing new, but the Europeans are trying to distort the real meaning of his message,“ he said.
Stressing that people hold divergent views across the world, Asefi said, “I am surprised why Europeans cannot tolerate different outlooks. They should accept these messages and Israel does not have the right to play victim and take resort to warmongering under such a pretext.“

-Iran Daily News, December 11, 2005

Interesting take on the situation. If only everyone spoke Farsi, then we'd know what he really said. Because, you know, you never really can trust a western translation. Hey, I've got an idea! We could look to the Islamic Republic News Agency to translate for us. Given that it's the official news agency of the republic, I doubt they would "distort" the president's words. I mean, that wouldn't make sense, right? Shall we have a look-see?

TEHRAN, Dec. 9--Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triggered new international outcry on Thursday by saying the “tumor“ of the state of Israel should be relocated to Europe. His remarks were greeted with outrage from Germany, Austria, Israel and the United States, AFP reported.
In Ahmadinejad’s interview, he referred to the Holocaust as a matter of belief, and raised the issue of revisionist historians--who attempt to establish that figures on the number of Jews killed by the Nazis are wildly exaggerated--being prosecuted in Europe.

-Iran Daily News, December 9, 2005

...Maybe somebody should tell them to take down their archives.