Spain's foreign minister, Miguel Angel jovenlandesatinos, "regrets" that the major Spanish newspaper El Mundo published an interview with a British Holocaust denier, David Irving, AFP quoted a spokeswoman as saying.
"The foreign minister, while maintaining the most absolute respect for freedom of expression, regrets that space was given to a historian who denies one of the biggest tragedies for humanity in modern history," she was quoted as telling reporters in Stockholm.
"These types of statements deeply hurt the Jewish people," she added, according to the French news agency.
The daily published the interview with Irving, who was sentenced in Austria in 2006 to three years in prison for Holocaust denial, as part of a series of six interviews with experts on the Second World War. The series was timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the war's outbreak.
Earlier this week, Israel's Ambassador to Spain, Rafi Shotz, sent a letter to the editor of El Mundo requesting that he drop the upcoming publication.
In return, the paper printed Shotz's letter, emitting a line where the ambassador referred to the interview as "cheap, sensational propaganda." The editor also wrote a response to the letter, in which he referred to Shotz's standing on the matter as "extreme and stubborn."
