New York - New York police may have to escort Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a possible visit to Ground Zero when he is in the city to attend United Nations meetings next week, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday. The New York Sun had reported the Iranian mission to the UN has requested assistance from the New York City Police Department and the Secret Service for possible visit to the site of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center.
Ahmadinejad is scheduled to arrive Monday to attend UN meetings and address the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.
Kelly told local news reporters that he was discussing the possibility of Ahmadinejad's visit with the US Secret Service, which is responsible for the safety of government leaders visiting New York City.
"There has been some interest expressed in his visiting the area," Kelly said. "It's something that we are prepared to handle if in fact it does happen."
The presidents of major US Jewish organizations said Wednesday that Ahmadinejad should be barred from the World Trade Center site in New York.
"For the president of the leading state-sponsor of terrorism to visit this sacred place would violate its sanctity and the memory of those who perished there," the organizations said in a statement.
Ahmadinejad has called for the destruction of Israel and is at loggerheads with the UN Security Council, which seeks to prevent Iran from manufacturing weapons of mass destruction as it has obtained high uranium grade from its advanced conversion technology.
The Jewish groups issued the statement even though there was no certainty that Ahmadinejad would visit Ground Zero, where more than 2,700 people were killed in the terrorist attacks.
The statement asked the UN to restrict Ahmadinejad's movements to the UN premises and bar him from visiting places of US historic and symbolic significance.
It called on President George W Bush and New York government officials to prevent "this outrage."
