UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "misused" an anti-racism conference at which he called Israel a racist state.His speech sparked wide condemnation and a walkout by EU delegates.
Iran criticised Mr Ban's comments as "one-sided". Mr Ahmadinejad returned home on Tuesday to what was officially described as a "sensational" welcome.
The UN said Mr Ahmadinejad had dropped language from his speech describing the Holocaust as "ambiguous and dubious".
'Very regretful'
The original text of the speech said that after World War II, Western nations had "resorted to military aggression to make an entire nation homeless, on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and dubious question of Holocaust".
Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News website
The one issue that never seems to go away when conferences of this kind are held is the Israeli-Palestinian one.
A document has been already been agreed among those governments attending and you have to read it quite closely to detect the tremors remaining from the earthquakes in discussions that went before.
But enough contentious issues remain and the result is a boycott by the US, Israel, Germany, Italy, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Fault lines split UN summit 
But UN officials said the Iranian president had dropped the terms "ambiguous and dubious", speaking instead of "the abuse of the question of the Holocaust".
Nevertheless, during a trip to Malta on Tuesday, Mr Ban said it was "very regretful that the conference was misused by the Iranian president for political purposes".
"Before the speech I had a long bilateral meeting with President Ahmadinejad and urged him to give a balanced and constructive contribution to the conference because he was the only head of state present," he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
Mr Ahmadinejad spoke on Monday at the start of the five-day UN conference in Geneva.
Jewish migrants, he said, had been sent from Europe and the US after World War II "in order to establish a totally racist government in the occupied Palestine".
Applause
He continued: "And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."
RACISM CONFERENCE UN conference on racism - draft outcome [90.6 KB]
Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader
In quotes: Ahmadinejad's speech In quotes: World reaction to speech
His comments prompted a walkout by delegates from at least 30 countries, and a raft of condemnation from Western officials.
Diplomats who remained, however, applauded as Mr Ahmadinejad continued his address.
Some countries, including the US, had boycotted the conference because the Iranian president was appearing.
France called his address a "hate speech", while the US called it "vile".
Earlier, Mr Ban had expressed dismay at both the boycotts and Mr Ahmadinejad's speech.
He said the speech had been used "to accuse, divide and even incite".
Iranian state TV quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying that Mr Ban's comments "displayed a one-sided and unreasonable approach".
This article is from the
BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
UN 'regrets' Iran leader's speech 
Linear Mode
