Speaking in an interview with ZDF television, Merkel said Ahmadinejad's missive "constantly put in question" Israel's right to exist and avoided any comment about Iran's disputed nuclear programme.

"It is not in order and it's for this reason that the letter does not merit a response," she said.

Government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm earlier said the letter contained "a lot of declarations which are unacceptable to us, in particular on the right of Israel to exist and the Holocaust".

The official Iranian news agency IRNA reported Wednesday that Ahmadinejad had sent a letter to Merkel, two months after he had written an angry note to US President George W. Bush.

Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush in early May interrupted a 26-year break in top-level contacts with arch-foe the United States, but offered no concessions in the nuclear dispute raging between Tehran and world powers.

In his 18-page message, the firebrand leader lashed out at the US-led invasion of Iraq, questioned Israel's right to exist, mapped out Iran's unswerving drive to master nuclear technology and even told Bush, a born-again Christian, he should be more pious.

In a speech carried on state television in April, Ahmadinejad complained that Germany was being exploited by "greedy Zionists" more than 60 years after World War II.

"Look at the German people. Three generations ago, there was a war. But today an intelligent people is still a hostage of World War II," he said.

The Iranian president has repeatedly cast doubt on the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis in World War II, describing the Holocaust as a "myth".

Germany, along with France and Britain, has been at the forefront of international diplomatic efforts to get Iran to stop uranium enrichment amid fears the Islamic republic is planning to build nuclear weapons.

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