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Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said Thursday that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei personally told him in 2000 that Israel must be physically annihilated. "In a private discussion we held in Tehran in October of 2000, Ali Khamenei told me that Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth," Aznar told the audience, according to a report in Israel Hayom. Aznar spoke at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). Former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Dore Gold, the head of JCPA, asked Aznar if Khamenei...

He has completed two terms as president and a third as prime minister. Theoretically, he could be leading his country until 2024, which would make him the longest-serving Russian or Soviet leader since Stalin. Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin last week generated a wave of commentary, which generally concluded that what was, is, and will be. Putin 4.0, like the previous versions, believes that Russia still hasn't recovered from its crash in the 1990s, so it's not yet ripe for pluralistic democracy. Putin 4.0 believes the world is dangerous, chaotic and hostile. He will therefore roll back the political...

Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar told the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him that Israel will 'take care of' Iran. Aznar also repeated a conversation with Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni in which Khameni said that it was 'inevitable' that Iran would confront the United States and Israel. Don’t worry about Iran, Israel will take care of it, former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as telling him years ago. Aznar, speaking Wednesday at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on a meeting he...

FORMER SPANISH PRESIDENT Aznar:“Muslims should apologize for occupying Spain for 800 years” 09/23/2006 Bush and his war on terror, said the West is under attack from radical Islam and must defend itself. “It is them or it is us,” Aznar said. “There is no middle ground.” Jose Maria AznarMuslims should apologize for occupying Spain for 800 years and a U.N.-backed program to encourage dialogue between them and West is stupid, former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar has said. Aznar made his comments Friday night in a speech at the Hudson Institute, a thinktank in Washington, D.C., as he discussed...

José María Aznar has said that while he has heard Pope Benedict XVI being asked to apologise for a speech about the Islamic faith he made in Germany last weekend, he has not heard "any Muslims apologising to me for conquering Spain and staying for eight centuries." The former president of the Spanish government was answering a question at the Hudson Institute in Washington, where he had earlier made a speech during which he said that international terrorism "threatens us all wherever we may be. We are at war. This is a war, and, to fight it, it is indispensable...

Prime Minister Aznar illustrated the fact that while “not all Muslims are Jihadists, all Jihadists are Muslims.” Prime Minister Aznar’s party lost the 2004 election, only 3 days after the tragic events of the Madrid train bombing. His successor has since withdrawn all Spanish troops from Iraq.

Madrid: Jose Maria Aznar, former Spanish prime minister, defended Pope Benedict XVI’s comments about Islam, saying on Friday the pontiff had no need to apologise and asking why Muslims never did. the Spanish media said yesterday. “Why do we always have to say sorry and they never do?” Aznar told a conference in Washington on “global threats” on Friday. On Saturday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted as saying that more European leaders should have spoken out in support of the Pope after he made his disputed comments on Islam. "I was disappointed there were not more European...

MEXICO CITY – Officials on Wednesday were investigating whether former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar violated Mexican law when he publicly expressed hope that ruling-party candidate Felipe Calderon would win the July 2 presidential election. Speaking at the headquarters of President Vicente Fox's National Action Party on Tuesday, Aznar praised the accomplishments of 43-year-old Calderon, a former energy secretary. “Yes, I'm also here to say that I hope and wish that Felipe Calderon will be the new president of Mexico,” he said, “for the well-being of all Mexicans and for the well-being of the country.” At his daily briefing...

On March 11, Spain suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history and one of the bloodiest the world has ever known. Terrorists planned their cowardly acts with the express purpose of killing as many people as possible, in order to sow terror and strike a mortal blow against our freedoms and rights. It was a day we felt an immense pain, pain we will never forget. But it was also a pain we must all learn from. Its lessons are simple. If we want to stop terrorists from murdering us and from dictating how we lead our lives, we...

Spain's ex-PM to Israel: Ignore Europe Herb Keinon, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 6, 2005 Israel need not pay much attention to Europe, which is using its Middle East policy to separate itself from the US, has a tendency toward appeasement and is largely pro-Palestinian, former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar told The Jerusalem Post Monday. "Europe likes appeasement very much; this is one of the most important differences between us and the States," Aznar said in an interview on the Bar-Ilan University campus. "Europeans don't like any problems. They prefer appeasement." The strongly pro-American Aznar, who bucked public sentiment...

The world is currently facing a number of very important challenges. Fighting terrorism and bringing democracy to the Middle East are priorities on the international agenda, whilst re-establishing strong and healthy relations between America and Europe -- and enhancing their ability to deter rogue regimes -- constitutes a no less urgent and essential task. It is evident that we must also support the forces of democracy against pre-dictatorial populism in Latin America. Finally, we must find an effective role for the United Nations, an organization that so far has proved itself incapable of reflecting upon its own actions and its...

Troubles deepened for Lady Thatcher's disgraced son last night when a self-confessed coup plotter surfaced to accuse him of direct involvement in the attempt to overthrow the regime in Equatorial Guinea. Crause Steyl, the mercenary pilot who was to have been the star witness against Mark Thatcher had his trial in South Africa gone ahead, told Channel 4 News that Sir Mark's role had been kept secret, because "his mother was the previous prime minister of England". Mr Steyl described meeting Sir Mark to select a helicopter on which a gun could be mounted. He also alleged that the Spanish...

Good afternoon to everyone. March 11, 2004 has now its place in the history of infamy. This morning, in Madrid, terrorists have detonated several bombs placed in metropolitan commuter trains which circulated full of citizens. In this moment of deep sadness, my first words are for the victims of these unqualifiable attacks. It's now more than one humdred dead, to which mourning has come without knocking, thousands living times of uncertainty. Let me tell you that I feel your anguish as my own, I want you to know that, in these hours of pain and democratic resolve, the national Government...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The Spanish prime minister paid a brief, surprise visit Saturday to his country's soldiers in Iraq, affirming his support for the occupation as the United States said it was deploying more troops. Also, U.S. forces mistakenly fired on Iraqi policemen manning a checkpoint in northeast Iraq, killing three officers and wounding two, local police said. And in an apparent revenge campaign, attackers separately killed two people with close ties to the former regime of Saddam Hussein. In a trip reminiscent of President Bush's Thanksgiving Day visit, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar landed in Iraq at about...

<p>Jose Maria Aznar hasn't just turned Spain into a staunch U.S. ally and economic dynamo, he's also doing something no other Spanish leader has since Charles V abdicated in 1556 -- he's preparing to leave office of his own accord. I put this to him last week in an interview -- adding, in jest, that Charles V's record might need an asterisk against it as he was only half-Spanish -- and Mr. Aznar did something even more unusual: He laughed. "Si," he chuckled, after some thought.</p>

WASHINGTON - Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar is the latest in a long list of foreign leaders winning up-close-and-personal thank yous from President Bush for supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq Aznar was due to see Bush on Wednesday at the White House in a visit complete with a joint appearance before reporters in the Rose Garden. The Iraq allies were to talk about reconstruction and plan for the push to lift U.N. sanctions on Baghdad, said Sean McCormack, a White House spokesman. Expansion and reform of NATO also was likely to come up, McCormack said. The U.N. Security...

<p>WASHINGTON — Faced with underwhelming support from the United Nations for a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, President Bush and his two most steadfast allies headed for Portugal's Azores archipelago for a brief emergency summit.</p> <p>Bush departed early from the Camp David retreat where he spent the weekend, flying more than halfway across the Atlantic Ocean to huddle for less than five hours with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. The three-way summit in Azores was billed as the final push for a diplomatic solution to disarming Saddam.</p>

US allies set for crisis summit President George W Bush is to hold emergency talks with British and Spanish leaders on Sunday amid diplomatic deadlock at the UN Security Council over their plans for disarming Iraq. The three countries co-sponsored a draft resolution that would have given Baghdad until next Monday to disarm or face a US-led war. But despite frantic diplomatic efforts, they have so far failed to win backing for their position, while France and Russia have threatened to veto any resolution that authorises war. Mr Bush, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar pledged anew Wednesday to fight global terrorism together as Bush delivered his condolences for and continued U.S. help with an enormous oil spill off northwestern Spain. Before a joint Oval Office meeting, Bush praised Aznar as ``one of the world's strongest leaders when it comes to our mutual concerns about keeping the peace and fighting terror.'' Among the stickier items sure to intrude on the meeting is Spain's displeasure over being involved by the United States in an embarrassing high seas takeover of a legal missile shipment to...

Right-wing tide surges straight to the heart of EuropeBy Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels (Filed: 22/04/2002) EUROPE'S rising Right-wing tide swept into the core countries of the European Union yesterday, rocking Germany's Social Democrats and threatening France's socialist government.Over the last two years, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, and Norway have all turned against the centre-Left consensus that had such a lock on Europe during the 1990s, opting instead for law-and-order parties promising tax cuts, deregulation, and a much tougher line on immigrants.But the pace is now quickening as ever more radical figures build mass support, often outflanking the conventional centre-Right...