Ahmadinejad offers 'simple' solution for Palestinians

AFP — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday proposed a "simple solution" to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict under which "everyone should go home."

"If the backers of the Zionist regime want to solve the issue... the solution is simple ... everyone should go home," he told an international conference, as the United Nations mulls a Palestinian statehood bid.

"Some poor people were brought to Palestine on the promise of security and jobs while they made Palestinian people into refugees... So now Palestinians should go home and those brought here should go to theirs," he said.

Tehran's two-day International Conference on Palestine was attended by parliamentarians from some 20 nations and figures including Khaled Meshaal, exiled chief of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

At the opening on Saturday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated the Islamic republic's opposition to the division of Palestinian lands.

"Any plan which would lead to the division of Palestine is unacceptable," Khamenei said. "Any plan that would create two states ... would be accepting a Zionist state in the land of Palestine."

Ahmadinejad, who is known for making fiery anti-Israeli speeches, on Sunday dubbed the Jewish state a cancerous tumor" which had to be removed to save the region and the world.

Iran has not recognised Israel since its 1979 Islamic revolution and backs Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups fighting against the Jewish state.

On September 23, the UN Security Council took up a request for full recognition of a Palestinian state over the vehement opposition of Israel and the United States.