Iran's ambassador to Lisbon was summoned by Portugal's government on Wednesday after saying in an interview it would have taken the Nazis 15 years to burn the corpses of 6 million people. The remarks, reflecting similar Holocaust denials by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, were an unacceptable distortion of history, Portuguese Foreign Minister Diogo Freitas do Amaral said in a statement. The statements "seriously offended humanity's collective conscience," the minister said.In an interview on Tuesday with Portuguese state radio RDP, Iranian ambassador Mohammed Taheri said: "When I was ambassador in Warsaw, I visited Auschwitz and Birkenau twice and made my calculations. To incinerate 6 million people, 15 years would be necessary."
Freitas do Amaral said Taheri was told his statements and those of his government's over the Holocaust were unacceptable. Freitas do Amaral said Iran's statements over the Holocaust, attacks on embassies in Tehran and Iran's "negative attitude" in its nuclear standoff with the International Atomic Energy Agency were threatening relations based on "mutual confidence." Ahmedinejad has repeatedly denied that the Holocaust, the Nazis' killing of 6 million Jews during World War Two, took place. He has also called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."