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Rice explains Ground Zero stand
24/09/2007 17:01 - (SA)
New York - US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said on Monday that it would have been a
travesty for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit the
"Ground Zero" World Trade Centre site in New York.
"I think it would have been a travesty," Rice told cable TV
channel CNBC in an interview. "This is somebody who is the
president of a country that is probably the greatest
sponsor -
state sponsor - of terrorism, someone who is a Holocaust
denier, someone who has talked about wiping other countries off
the map. "I think it would have been a travesty."
Ahmadinejad, who is in New York to attend the UN General
Assembly and who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map,
was denied a request to visit the World Trade Centre site of
the 9/11 attacks.
The United States cut off diplomatic relations with Iran in
1980, when 52 American citizens were being held hostage by
Iranian students, and it accuses Iran of seeking to develop
atomic weapons under the cover of a civil nuclear programme.
Iran denies this, saying its nuclear programme is to generate
power so it can export more of its valuable oil and gas.
- Reuters
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