Iranian President Mohamad Khatami on Monday again called on all Arab and Islamic nations to sever relations with Israel in order to defend the Palestinian cause.
"I tell all my colleagues in the Islamic and Arab world that the oppressed Palestinians are placing hope in us to defend their rights and at least echo their voice to the world," he said, cited by the state IRNA news agency.
But the report gave no indication of any rumored Iranian boycott of next week's meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Qatar, which has drawn the ire of Arabs and Muslims by not closing down an Israeli trade office in Doha, or Qatar's trade representation in Tel Aviv.
As rotating head of the OIC, Iran is scheduled to pass the torch to Qatar at the summit, scheduled for November 12-14.
Iran does not recognize the Jewish state and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on Muslim nations to pave the way for a jihad or holy war against Israel over the recent Middle East bloodshed.
Some 180 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in five weeks of violence since late September -- TEHRAN (AFP)
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