On Friday afternoon, Joaquín Navarro Valls, director of the Vatican press office, published a statement affirming that the «serious events of these last days in the Holy Land worry the Holy See profoundly.»
He said that the Vatican, «uniting itself to the whole international community, expresses its firm condemnation of the acts of violence — the terrorist attack of Hadera and the subsequent reprisal — regardless of the side from which they come.»
The note condemns, moreover, «some particularly serious and unacceptable statements, with which the right of existence of the state of Israel has been denied.»
Today, Ahmadinejad said his recent requests to erase Israel from the map are part of established Iranian policy and not a change of position.
In his communiqué, Navarro Valls explained that the Holy See reaffirms «the right, both of Israelis as well as Palestinians, to live in peace and security, each in their own sovereign state.»
The Vatican appealed to the leaders of all Mideast peoples to hear «the yearnings for peace and justice arising from their peoples.»
