Tel Aviv - Israel's President Shimon Peres called on Sunday for the setting aside of the ongoing debate over Pope Pius XII, and hoped the current Pope Benedict XVI will answer an invitation to visit the Jewish State.

Peres said that no "connection" should be made between the "issue of Pius XII and the visit of the pope to Israel," the Israeli Ynet Website said.

Peres was reacting to Father Peter Gumpel, who said the previous day that the pope should not visit Israel as long as the state's Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, continued to have a caption under a photo of Pius which implied he remained silent about Nazi persecution of Jews during World War II.

The Vatican distanced itself from Gumpel's comment.

Yad Vashem said in a statement it was "certain that the opening of Vatican archives on the relevant period would help further research on the subject" of Pius, who was pope from 1939 until 1958.

Earlier Sunday, Benedict suspended the beatification process for the World War II pope, in response to protests from Jewish groups, the Vatican said

Gumpel, in charge of the Pius file, had said the beatification process was complete and merely awaiting Benedict's signature. (dpa)