Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in the United States and makes two appearances Monday, attracting protest and controversy. Mr. Ahmadinejad is set to address journalists in Washington by videoconference from New York and give a speech at Columbia University.
He arrived in the United States Sunday for a visit that includes addressing the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday.
Iranian exiles, New York politicians and media as well as human rights and Jewish groups have all protested his visit.
The Bush administration alleges that Iran supports Shi'ite insurgents in Iraq, and that Tehran is seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon, charges Iran denies.
Mr. Ahmadinejad has also called for Israel's destruction and denied the Holocaust happened.
Critics say Columbia University should not give the Iranian leader a platform to speak. But the university's president says Mr. Ahmadinejad will be challenged on his positions and defends the appearance on the principles of free speech and academic freedom.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday, on CNBC television that in a free country, the decision to allow someone to speak is the university's to make.
But Rice added that it would have been wrong for the Iranian president to visit the World Trade Center site, as he requested, to lay a wreath for the victims of the September 11th terror attacks.
New York police denied the Iranian leader's request on security grounds. U.S. President George Bush said last week he understood why the police would not want someone who is running a country that is, in his words, a state sponsor of terror at the site.
The Iranian president said on the CBS program 60 Minutes that Iran does not need nuclear weapons and he does not believe the United States and Iran are on a path to war. The interview was recorded last week in Tehran and broadcast Sunday.
He says Iran has the right to develop a nuclear program, which he says is for peaceful purposes only. - VOA News
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