The head of the U.N.'s drug-fighting agency and the U.S. State Department have criticized anti-Jewish remarks made by an Iranian vice president last week.

A statement issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says agency chief Yury Fedotov expressed, "his dismay and serious concern" while meeting with a senior unidentified Iranian diplomat in Vienna "about the anti-Semitic comments of Iranian Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi."

Rahimi was cited by Iranian media and on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's website as saying at the June 26 anti-drugs meeting in Tehran that "the spread of narcotics in the world emanates from the teachings of the Talmud ... whose objective is the destruction of the world." The Talmud is the Jewish book of laws.

Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be wiped off the map in 2005.

In Washington on Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland issued a statement condemning what she called "Rahimi's vile anti-Semitic and racist comments."