Howrah News Service -  Latest news and headlines on Howrah,West Bengal and World: ‘Iran Prez wants to meet Pope’

‘Iran Prez wants to meet Pope’
================================================================================
NewsByte on 27 May, 2008 02:20:00
 
Rome, May 27: Iran’s hardline President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to meet
Pope Benedict XVI when he visits the Italian capital next week, La Repubblica
daily reported on Tuesday.
Mr Ahmadinejad "would like to expound his ideas to His Holiness Pope Benedict
XVI and his government’s position on the major issues in world affairs,"
according to an unnamed diplomatic source, cited by La Repubblica. Tehran has
given the Iranian embassy to the Holy See, instructions to ask "repeatedly" for
an audience with the Pope, the paper said. Mr Ahmadinejad has also asked for a
meeting with Italy’s new conservative Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi,
according to La Repubblica. Mr Ahmadinejad will be in Rome to attend an FAO
summit of world leaders on global food security, climate change and bioenergy.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation is holding the summit at
its Rome headquarters from 3-5 June. "I hope the visit by President Ahmadinejad
will send a message to the international community. He is convinced that
today’s world scenario will undergo radical change," Iran’s ambassador to
Italy, Abolfaz Zohrevand, told La Repubblica. He did not elaborate.
Mr Ahmadinejad has in speeches over several years repeatedly called for the
destruction of Israel.
The Iranian government is currently locked in a tense standoff with western
powers over its nuclear programme, which Tehran claims is solely for electricity
generation but which the West fears is aimed at building atomic weapons.
—By arrangement with AKI