Israel on Sunday slammed UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's planned visit to Iran, saying the trip could grant legitimacy to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent call for Israel to be "wiped off the map", Israel Radio reported.

"This sends a message of business-as-usual and perhaps even grants legitimacy to a nation which demands the destruction of another state," Danny Gillerman, Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, was quoted as saying.

"I said this to the (UN) secretary general as well" and "I very much hope that he will reconsider," Gillerman told the radio.

Meanwhile, US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, in an interview with Israel Radio, has also spoken publicly against Annan's planned visit. "We hope the secretary general will take all the factors into account in considering whether he's going to undertake that trip," he said.

On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad told a students conference in the country that Israel "should be wiped away from the map" and the recognition of Israel was "surrender and defeat of Islamic world".

The hardline message has drawn immediate and hard-worded denouncement of the United States and the European Union. Even Annan also expressed his condemnation, saying he was dismayed by Ahmadinejad's words.

In an apparent bid to calm the international fury ignited by Ahmadinejad's call for Israel's destruction, Tehran said on Saturday that it stood by its UN commitments not to use violence against another country.

Source: Xinhua