Former presidential candidate and IRGC commander Mohsen Rezai's news site Baztab reports in Persian today on a European press interview with Ali Akbar Velayti, who is a former Iranian foreign minister and current foreign affairs consultant to supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Velayati says the recent Tehran conference on the holocaust, which he did not attend, was not intended as a denial of the holocaust, but merely as an occasion to "study the realities."

Velayati also told an interviewer there is still a need to keep the Hezbollah armed in Lebanon because of the Israeli presence in the Cheba Farms border region, and that is why Iran opposes the UN resolution calling for their disarmament.

This interview appears to be part of an attempt by Iran's higher authority to reduce the damage its president is causing with his public comments. Baztab is among the voices in Iran that are publicly critical of President Ahmadinezhad for his inflammatory rhetoric. The site is also complaining that it believes an element of the president's cabinet, the Ministry of Communications, has begun censoring its content.

Le Monde published the French version of the Velayati interview here.