NEW YORK (AFP) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was engulfed in bitter controversy Monday as the alleged "Holocaust denier" who has been accused of backing terrorism prepared to address a skeptical US public.
The firebrand leader, who denied Sunday that the Islamic republic wants to build nuclear weapons, was to talk to the National Press Club in Washington by video conference and speak at Columbia University here.
Ahmadinejad said before leaving Tehran that the visit would give Iran an international platform to lay out its peaceful intentions, but about 100 protestors gathered Monday at Columbia angry that he had been given a venue to speak out.
"Stop Ahmadinejad, the Hitler of Iran," chanted one protester, Mordechi Levy of the Jewish Defense Organzation, calling for alumni to boycott the university.
"He denies the Holocaust," said 77-year-old Lyubov Bistreff who fled Nazi persecution in Ukraine during World War II. "Let him speak at the United Nations but not here," she added.
On Tuesday Ahmadinejad was to address the UN General Assembly, but has been denied a request to visit the Ground Zero site of New York's World Trade Center, whose twin towers were felled in the September 11 attacks of 2001.
His desired visit to what many Americans view as hallowed ground was nixed by New York police for security reasons, but in any case it would have been a "travesty," according to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"I think this is somebody who is the president of a country that is probably the greatest sponsor of state-sponsored terrorism, someone who is a Holocaust denier, someone who has talked about wiping other countries off the map," she told the CNBC television network Monday.
Columbia president Lee Bollinger, however, defended the decision to invite Ahmadinejad, saying the university "as a community is dedicated to learning and scholarship, is committed to confronting ideas."
Bollinger said he would introduce the event and challenge Ahmadinejad's comments on the Holocaust, his calls for the destruction of Israel and Tehran's pursuit of a nuclear program in the face of international opposition.
Speaking in an interview with CBS television broadcast Sunday, Ahmadinejad downplayed Iran's nuclear ambitions and said there was no reason to think the United States and his country were on a path to war.
"You have to appreciate we don't need a nuclear bomb. We don't need that. What need do we have for a bomb?" the Iranian leader said.
"It's wrong to think that Iran and the US are walking towards war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing."
During a meeting with Iranian expatriates Sunday, Ahmadinejad vowed not to give up the nuclear program, which Tehran insists is for civilian energy.
"Iranians may give up many things but will not back down on their national interests by one iota," the president told his compatriots, according to official Iranian media.
"They want us to give up enrichment so they can sell us nuclear fuel drop by drop with frequent threats of sanctions and exorbitant prices."
Speaking at the UN Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France was ready to help any country that wants to have civilian nuclear power.
"It is the best response to those who, in violation of all the treaties, want to arm themselves with nuclear weapons," he said, as the UN Security Council debates new sanctions over Iran's atomic program.
Iranian opposition exiles and Jewish groups joined in Tuesday's protest at Columbia, waving pre-Islamic revolution Iranian flags and banners depicting Ahmadinejad as a swastika -- the symbol of the Nazis.
But Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency: "The General Assembly of the United Nations is a good opportunity to present the solutions of the Iranian people to solve the problems of the world.
"We need to take advantage of such opportunities to present the positions of the Iranian people as they (the Americans) are very keen to hear them."
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