Serbia and Russia on Wednesday join international calls condemning an gathering of Holocaust deniers hosted and sponsored by the Iranian government in Tehran.

Serbia called the conference a "damaging and pseudo-scientific" event.

The Balkan country's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the two-day conference that began Tuesday in Tehran is an "attempt to deny undeniable facts about the tragedy of the Jewish people during World War II."

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Participants at the gathering, supported by Iran's President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, have questioned the Holocaust's death toll of 6 million or if it took place at all.

Serbia's government considers the gathering a "damaging and pseudo-scientific manifestation that cannot contribute to dialogue between cultures and religions," it said.

During the Nazi occupation of Serbia and other parts of the then Yugoslav Kingdom, tens of thousands of Jews died. Less than half of Serbia's 30,000-strong Jewish community before World War II survived the Holocaust. Many later moved to Israel or to the West.

Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday criticized Iran for
hosting a conference of Holocaust deniers, saying Moscow opposed "the
concealment of the truth about the monstrous crimes of the Nazis."

In a statement posted on the ministry's Web site, spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said Russia had condemned Tehran and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the past for threatening Israel and denying the systematic killing of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during World War II.

Russia opposes "the distortion of historic events, the concealment of the
truth about the monstrous crimes of the Nazis, and revision of results of
humanity's most difficult struggle against Nazism," he said.

"Russia shares the determination of the UN general assembly not to allow the denial of the Holocaust."

Russia has itself had a troubled history with anti-Semitism.

Some scholars estimate that as many as 2 million Jews from the Soviet Union died in the Holocaust following the Nazi invasion of the country in World War II.

Russian Jewish leaders also condemned the conference.

Authorities "should unambiguously state their rejection of such issues,"
Borukh Gorin of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia, was quoted by Interfax as saying. He also asked whether "an Iran headed by a maniac with an atomic bomb is advantageous or safe?"

The two-day conference in Iran sparked widespread and angry condemnation in Israel and across Europe, where many countries have made it a crime to
publicly deny that the Holocaust happened.