New York City authorities on Wednesday rejected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s request to tour Ground Zero, the site of the September 11, 2001 attacks, next week, reported AFP.

New York police deputy chief Paul Browne said Ahmadinejad’s request was rejected during a meeting of officials from the city’s police department, the US Secret Service and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site.

Ahmadinejad wanted to visit Ground Zero during his trip to the UN General Assembly next week, a request that outraged critics refusing to let the leader of a regime considered a state sponsor of terrorism visit “hallowed” ground.

US Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, who was New York’s mayor at the time of the attacks, had urged city authorities to reject the request.
“This is a man who has made threats against America and Israel, is harboring bin Laden’s son and other Al-Qaeda leaders, is shipping arms to Iraqi insurgents and is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons,” Giuliani said. “Assisting Ahmadinejad in touring Ground Zero — hallowed ground for all Americans — is outrageous,” he said.

Another Republican candidate, Senator Sam Brownback, blasted Ahmadinejad’s request as “outrageous and unacceptable,” describing the Iranian regime in a statement as “the biggest state sponsor of terror in the world.”