Iran said Sunday it would sponsor a conference to examine the scientific evidence supporting the Holocaust, an apparent next step in hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's campaign against Israel and a move likely to deepen Tehran's international isolation.

Ahmadinejad already had called the Nazis' World War II slaughter of 6 million European Jews a myth and said the Jewish state should be wiped off the map or moved to Germany or the United States.

Those remarks prompted a global outpouring of condemnation, and Tehran further raised international concern last week when it resumed what it called "research" at its uranium enrichment facility.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. organization that monitors nuclear proliferation, said Iran was resuming small-scale nuclear enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for atomic bombs.

That, in turn, prompted Washington and its allies to renew their push to take Iran before the U.N. Security Council for the possible imposition of sanctions.

The United States, its European allies and Japan believe Tehran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies the charge and says its nuclear program is only for electricity generation.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi did not disclose where or when the Holocaust conference would be held, nor would he say who would attend or what had prompted Tehran to sponsor it.

Source: Agencies