TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday called Israel a "stinking corpse" which is doomed to disappear as the Jewish state celebrated its 60th anniversary.

"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

"Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation," he said.

Ahmadinejad added that Israel "has reached the end like a dead rat after being slapped by the Lebanese" -- a reference to the July-August 2006 war between Israel and the Shiite Hezbollah militia.

Iran does not recognise the Jewish state, and since becoming president in 2005 Ahmadinejad has repeatedly provoked international outrage by predicting that Israel is doomed to disappear.

He has also caused controversy by playing down the scale of the Holocaust.

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