Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that the U.S.-brokered Mideast peace conference on Tuesday was a failure and that Israel is doomed to collapse.
The comments, lashing out at the Annapolis gathering that many saw as aimed at isolating Iran, marked the first time in months that the hard-line Iranian president used such strong anti-Israeli rhetoric.
"It is impossible that the Zionist regime will survive. Collapse is in the nature of this regime because it has been created on aggression, lying, oppression and crime," Ahmadinejad said after a cabinet meeting, according to state-run television.  
"Soon, even the most politically doltish individuals will understand that this conference was a failure from the beginning," he said, the official IRNA news agency reported.
In a reference to Arab countries who attended the conference, he said, "we are disappointed that some individuals fell victim to the sinister Zionist regime. They are mistaken if they thought that this summit will bring any achievements for them."
Iran has repeatedly condemned the Annapolis conference, saying it would fail to bring any peace for the Palestinians and warning that Arab countries who participated will be discredited in the eyes of their people. Iran on Tuesday expressed surprise that Damascus participated in the gathering, though it has stopped short of directly criticizing its close ally.
Ahmadinejad said the Palestinian resistance - such as Hamas, which is backed by Tehran - must have a say in any settlement.
"Many such meetings have been held but have failed," he said. "If decision is made about Palestine, representatives of the elected Palestinian government and resistance should be there and the rights of the Palestinian people - self-determination, the right of voting and return of refugees - must be recognized," he said.
Ahmadinejad has raised controversy in the West with past predictions of Israel's eventual destruction, including a comment saying it should be wiped off or disappear from the map. But more recently, he has stayed away from such comments amid criticism at home that inflammatory speeches were needlessly provoking the West against Iran.
U.S. officials have expressed hopes that the Annapolis conference, which launched Israeli-Palestinian peace talks for the first time in seven years, would weaken the hard-line alliance of Iran, Syria, and the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups.
Syria has defended its attendance, saying it is open to any serious attempt to reach a peace deal with Israel that brings the return of the Golan Heights. Syria's deputy foreign minister, Faysal Mekdad, told the conference Tuesday his country was "sincere in our pursuit of a just and comprehensive peace."
Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham said Tuesday that leaders of the Palestinian factions opposed to Annapolis would meet in Iran in another 10 days. "Iran is the home of all the fighting Palestinian factions who aspire to liberate their land from the grip of the thieving occupier," he said.
It is not clear whether this meeting will be in addition to or in place of a meeting of Palestinian rejectionist groups that had originally been slated to take place in Damascus. That meeting, supposed to be Tuesday, was postponed, and Hamas rejected an Iranian offer to host it in Tehran.  
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