MINSK (EJP)---The Jewish community in Belarus has sharply criticized this week's surprise visit in the country by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“How is it possible to invite a person, the leader of a state, who thinks that in order to resolve the Middle East problem it is necessary to destroy a whole state and people?,” Yakov Basin, deputy head of the Union of Jewish Associations of Belarus, asked.

He was referring to Ahmadinejad’s repeated verbal attacks in which the Iranian president described the Holocaust “a myth” and called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Basin said he was “strongly opposed” to the Iranian two-day visit which was at the invitation of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.

“It’s shameful to talk with a man who today plays the role of a modern Hitler,” he added.

Lukashenko has already visited Iran twice, in 2001 and 2006, but has not visited any EU country recently. The EU has introduced a travel ban on Lukashenko and other top Belarussian officials for quashing independent political parties, arresting opposition leaders and muzzling the media.

On Tuesday, Lukashenko heaped praise on his Iranian counterpart, rejecting claims that their two-day meeting was one of "outcast" states.

At a breakfast meeting, the Belarussian leader defended the two countries’new-found friendship in the face of criticism by democracy activists and others that it is a ploy to overcome international isolation.

'Europe's last dictatorship' 

The ex-Soviet state has been dubbed "Europe’s last dictatorship" by the United States.

"If anyone thinks that this is a meeting of outcast states, just meeting for the sake of meeting, you are deeply mistaken," Lukashenko said. "We’re satisfied by the results of our talks and have achieved all the goals we set ourselves."

Lukashenko praised Tehran for granting Belarus rights to an Iranian oil field that he said would reduce his country’s’ dependence on Russia.

In Israel, Lukashenko’s complimentary words that the Iranian leader’s viewpoint “in many respects is consonant with the Belarussian vision of the world order” produced negative reactions despite the fact that Israel and Belarus have developed better relations over the last years.
On Monday Ahmadinejad laid flowers at a memorial to victims of World War II but avoided referring to the Holocaust.

Local Jewish groups estimate that as many as 800,000 Jews were killed on the present-day territory of Belarus during WWII. 

After the war, while many Jews emigrated to Israel, the local community slowly started to rebuild itself. In 1992, the first rabbi arrived in the country.

Today, around 50,000 Jews live in the country, mainly in the capital Minsk but also in Borisov, Brest and Moghilev.