Washington, Sep 8 (EFE).- Cuba's Fidel Castro used an interview with a U.S. magazine to urge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to abandon Holocaust denial and refrain from "slandering" Jews.

Castro, whose recent public pronouncements have been dominated by warnings that a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran could spark a nuclear war, invited a journalist with The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to Havana to discuss the writer's recent article on Israel and Iran.

In the first installment of several Atlantic articles on their exchanges, Castro told Goldberg that the Iranian government must understand the consequences of anti-Semitic theology.

"This went on for maybe 2,000 years," the 84-year-old former Cuban president said. "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims."

Iran's government should understand that the Jews "were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God," Castro said.

"Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation," he told Goldberg.

The reporter asked him if he would be prepared to say that to the Iranian president and Castro responded: "I am saying this so you can communicate it."

On the other hand, he said that he understands Iran's fear of an attack by Israel and the United States and he felt that neither threats nor sanctions on the Iranian regime will dissuade Tehran from continuing with its nuclear program, which Washington and Tel Aviv claim is geared toward producing weapons.

"This problem is not going to get resolved, because the Iranians are not going to back down in the face of threats," Castro said, calling Iran a "profoundly religious country" and characterizing religious leaders as less inclined to compromise.

Castro also had a clear message for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Israel will only have security if it renounces its nuclear arsenal, and the world's other nuclear powers will only have security if they, too, renounce such weapons.

In Castro's judgment, Iran's ability to "inflict damage" is being underestimated.

"Men think they can control themselves but (U.S. President Barack) Obama could overreact and a gradual escalation could become a nuclear war," the Cuban leader said.

Since he retired in 2006 as a result of a serious intestinal illness that forced him to cede the presidency to younger brother Raul, Fidel has made few public appearances and has granted only a limited number of interviews.

Goldberg said that despite his delicate health, Castro's mind apparently continues to be just as sharp as ever, he has a high energy level and he seems to have developed a capacity for humor at his own expense.

The first interview Castro granted to a foreign news organization since his public reappearance at the beginning of July was to Mexican daily La Jornada, which published it in late August.