DAR AL HARB / ISLAM - U.S.A. / IRAN: AHMADIENJAD NOT COMING TO THE U.N., WHOSE FAULT IS IT?!? AMERICA'S FAULT OF COURSE

Iran blames U.S. for canceled Ahmadinejad trip

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad canceled a trip to New York to address the U.N. Security Council before it votes on whether to impose further sanctions against his country for refusing to stop enriching uranium, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday.

The decision came as diplomats from the five veto-wielding members of the Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - and Germany held a flurry of last-minute negotiations in New York on a draft resolution seeking to pressure Iran to comply.

The six powers want a vote on the resolution by today, but diplomats said that could be delayed by efforts to reach consensus to give the sanctions more weight.

The sanctions, agreed on last week by the six powers, would ban Iranian arms exports and freeze the assets of 28 additional individuals and organizations involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. About a third of those are linked to the Revolutionary Guard, an elite military corps.

Ahmadinejad said earlier this month that he wanted to take his case for nuclear power to the Security Council himself. Earlier yesterday, a council diplomat said the Iranian president would arrive in New York at 1 a.m. today, hours before the council is expected to meet.

But Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini told Iranian state television later in the day that the trip had been scrapped because of "America’s obstruction in issuing visas" to the Iranian delegation that was to travel to New York.

Hosseini said that instead of Ahmadinejad, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will attend the Security Council meeting and "explain Iran’s position regarding its nuclear activities."

"Due to open failure by the United States to issue visas for members of the Iranian delegation accompanying President Ahmadinejad and the air crew, American authorities have effectively prevented President Ahmadinejad from attending the U.N. Security Council meeting," Hosseini said.

Mohammad Mir Ali Mohammadi, press secretary of Iran’s mission at the U.N., told The Associated Press that the United States did not deliver a visa to the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland, in time for Ahmadinejad to pick it up before flying to New York for the session today.

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1) Iran blames U.S. for canceled Ahmadinejad trip