'Swiss leader's offer to meet Ahmadinejad compounds crime with a sin'

The Swiss president's offer to meet Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the "Durban 2" conference in Geneva is "wretched," Israel's former foreign minister told Army Radio on Sunday.

"This meeting that will take place compounds a crime with a sin," Silvan Shalom, who was recently appointed regional cooperation minister, told Army Radio. "The fact that Ahmadinejad is embraced by the Swiss president and others leads him to think that there is no reason to back down from his line of thinking."

Senior government officials on Saturday expressed anger toward Swiss President Hans Rudolf Merz over his scheduled meeting with Ahmadinejad in Geneva on Sunday.

President Hans Rudolf Merz intends to meet the Iranian president prior to the politically charged United Nations Durban II anti-racism conference, which is being boycotted by Israel other countries for its anti-Israel and anti-Zionist bias.

Deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon says a planned meeting between Switzerland's president and his Iranian counterpart is pathetic.

Ayalon says the meeting "caught us by surprise." He told Army Radio that Merz's meeting "hurts him and Switzerland more than anything else."

A high-ranking Jerusalem official noted that Israel is both indignant and astonished at the plan to hold the meeting, especially since the Swiss president is known to be a friend of Israel.

"There's no reason to hold such a high-profile meeting with a pathological Holocaust denier such as Ahmadinejad," the official said.

"It is offensive to shake the hand of the Iranian president who fouls his mouth with horrific displays of anti-Semitism, preaches for Israel's destruction, and hangs men, women and children in the streets of Iran's cities," the official added.