German Chancellor Angela Merkel and visiting French President Jacques Chirac rejected Thursday the remarks made by Iranian president that Israel should be moved to Europe.

At a joint press conference with Chirac, who is on an informal brief visit to Berlin, Merkel said:" These comments are absolutely unacceptable."

Ahmadinejad said earlier Thursday that he did not believe in the extent of the Holocaust and that Europeans should show their concern for Israel by finding a place for it in their own countries, such as Germany or Austria.

Merkel said she rejected the comments outright, voicing her confidence that the majority of members of the international community felt the same.

Chirac echoed her by saying that he was dismayed at what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been quoted as saying.

Chirac has come to meet Merkel to "construct with her a common approach" on a controversial Britain-proposed European Union 2007- 2013 budget, as he thought a French-German agreement "is necessary for progress of Europe," his spokesman Jerome Bonnafont quoted him as saying Thursday in Paris.

But Merkel said before she met Chirac that she did not want to weigh down the negotiations over EU finance by putting forward demands on certain countries.

On the Dec. 15-16 EU summit, the budget proposal produced by Britain for the 25-member EU will be the main topic to be discussed. London is holding the EU's current rotating presidency.

Source: Xinhua