DAMASCUS, Syria, March 28 (UPI) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told a U.S. television interviewer that the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust is unimportant.
Charlie Rose's hour-long interview with Assad at the presidential palace in Damascus ran Monday night on the Public Broadcasting System. The Syrian-Arab News Agency ran a transcript of the interview.
"It's not a matter of how many were killed, half a million, 6 million or one person," Assad said. "Killing is killing. For example, 8 million Soviets were killed, so why don't we talk about them? The problem is not the number of those killed but rather how they use the Holocaust. What do the Palestinians have to do with the Holocaust to pay the price?"
Rose introduced the subject by asking Assad about a recent visit to Iran and President Mahmoud Ahminejad's Holocaust denial.
"If you ask may people in the region they would say to you that the West exaggerated the Holocaust," Assad responded. "People say there was a Holocaust but they exaggerated it."
