Agence France-Presse (AFP) has apologized to the Simon Wiesental Center for publishing recently a map of the Middle East on its Twitter page that didn’t mention Israel.

“A regrettable fault was committed which was corrected as soon as it was noted,” the agency’s Director of information, Michele Leridon, wrote to Shimon Samuels, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Drector of international relations in Paris.

“This error was due to the reuse of a map background used for a different subject (the division between Shiites and Sunnis in the Muslim world),” the letter said.

“Only the names of the countries directly concerned with this matter were inscribed (in the same way as if we produced a map of the Eurozone, with the name of Switzerland not appearing on the map of Europe). When we learned of our error, it was immediately corrected. A map mentioning Israel was sent to all our outlets. We sincerely deplore this incident and pray that you will excuse us,” Leridon wrote.

Earlier this month, Samuel wrote a letter to AFP CEO Emmanuel Hoog in which he said that “inaction on this issue will be construed as an AFP endorsement of Iranian-declared policy to exterminate the Jewish state.”

The letter argued , "that AFP - an important global news agency - appears to sink so low as to commit the same outrage, we can only hope that this was the act of an anti-Semitic lone-wolf or a budding, Jihadist employee".

“When Iran first wiped the State of Israel off the map, this was defined by many as genocidal intent,” he wrote.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre called for "an AFP investigation, condemnation and immediate dismissal of the perpetrator".

"Inaction on this issue will be construed as an AFP endorsement of Iranian declared policy to exterminate the Jewish State and an encouragement to it followers," concluded Samuels.

In her response to Samuels, Leridon said, “As regrettable as it may be, this error did not justify the suspicions you bear towards our editors nor the extreme terms of your letter. Errors and disagreements may happen, but insult is not the best way to overcome them.”

‘’Israel is back on the AFP map, until the next time. We shall be monitoring,” Shimon Samuels commented.