Posted on 09/19/2007 5:16:07 PM PDT by freedom44
NEW YORK (AP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked permission to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site when he comes to New York City next week, but the request was denied, a police official said Wednesday.
Ahmadinejad, who is arriving Sunday to address the United Nations' General Assembly, had asked this month for permission to visit the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, police spokesman Paul Browne said.
The request to enter the fenced-in site was rejected because of ongoing construction there, Browne said.
"Requests for the Iranian president to visit the immediate area would also be opposed by the NYPD on security grounds," Browne said.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, told reporters Wednesday that the United States would not support Iran's attempt to use the site for a "photo op."
"Iran can demonstrate its seriousness about concern with regard to terrorism by taking concrete actions," such as dropping support for Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and suspending their uranium enrichment program, Khalilzad said.
Browne said Ahmadinejad had asked permission from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, U.S. Secret Service and police department. The police and the Secret Service provide security to visiting heads of state.
The Port Authority, which owns the trade center site and is the only agency that could grant him permission to go inside, said it never received such a request, contradicting the police statement.
"We have not been asked to accommodate the president of Iran," Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said.
It wasn't clear whether Ahmadinejad wanted to descend to the base of the trade center site, where the twin towers once stood, or lay a wreath on a public sidewalk outside the site.
Telephone calls to the Iranian Mission to the United Nations were not immediately returned.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said a visit to ground zero "is a matter for the city of New York, but it seems more than odd that the president of a country that is a state sponsor of terror would visit ground zero."
Iran and the U.S. have not had diplomatic relations since Washington cut its ties with Tehran after Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. The Bush administration has accused Iran of arming Shiite Muslim militants in Iraq and seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
In a television appearance earlier this week, Ahmadinejad said his country wanted peace and friendship with the United States, as tensions continued to mount between the two countries.
Instead, maybe we can lay a wreath on his grave.
View from the DUmp: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2997992
What not seize him as he enters the country and disembowel him on live national television?
Pardon my French, but F*CK him. Arrest him as an Enemy Combatant the MINUTE he steps cloven hoof on American Soil!
Grrrrr! :(
Fifty seconds behind you, LOL! :)
It’s a comin....comes to mind.
At least we won’t have to watch him get his tonsils licked like the IRA’s Gerry Adams did under krinton’s reign.
Immediate arrest ought to be the minimum.
Execution is only a fantasy - but a good one - don’t wake me up too early!
They’re living in a dream world.
Ahmadinejad is already a Holocaust denier......a visit to Ground Zero would just allow him to become a 9/11 denier.
Any Muslims die in the WTC?
You have not heard the last of this POS initiative.
Man , he does not want the USA to attack his nukes!
We should do it now!
He’s scared we’re going to bomb the $hit out of his country...he knows what’s been taking place in Iraq. He thinks if he can WIN the American Public by placing a wreath at ground zero...Americans’ will stop our military from hammering Iran into a heap of rouble
Wow. Very scary. You’d think they were all on the regime’s payroll.
Now we need to call here and tell them not to do this.
212-854-9970
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/26790
They live because better men and women than they could ever hope to be have protected them from birth, and of course, they never give their own country an even break, or think to THANK those that allow them the very freedom to speak their vile freely.
Ironic ain't it?
wouldn’t that fall under America’s hate crime laws? the man should not be allowed to set foot in america.
The wreath is probably really an IED in disguise.
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