Ahmadi-nejad just ignored him.
The report on what Ban told Ahmadi-nejad didn’t come some leaked news story. Very unusually, Ban’s own office told reporters on the record how Ban had cautioned Ahmadi-nejad.
A written statement from Ban’s spokesman said, “The secretary general drew attention to the potentially harmful consequences of inflammatory rhetoric, counter-rhetoric and threats from various countries in the Middle East.”
Ban went beyond the issued of rhetoric and waved more yellow cards in front of Ahmadi-nejad with regard to its nuclear program and Syria policy.
The UN statement said Ban told Ahmadi-nejad that Iran should “take the measures necessary to build international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear program.”
And the statement said, “The secretary general stressed the grave regional implications of the worsening situation in Syria and underlined the devastating humanitarian impact.”
In Tehran, Ban’s warnings to Ahmadi-nejad went unreported.
The president’s visit to the UN this year is his eighth and final visit. By the time the next General Assembly rolls around, Iran will have a new president who will probably not make news as readily as the outspoken Ahmadi-nejad.
Ignoring Ban’s advice, Ahmadi-nejad waded into touchy topics like a trooper in the many interviews and press gaggles he agreed to.
In a CNN interview with Piers Morgan, Ahmadi-nejad got eyes rolling all across America by denying that people can be born homosexual. Along with Americans of the religious right, he argued that homosexuality was a learned characteristic.
He didn’t leave the subject there. “Let me ask you this,” he said, “Do you believe that anyone is giving birth through homosexuality? Homosexuality ceases procreation.”
He also rapped the United States for what he saw as approval of homosexuality. “If a group recognizes ugly behavior or an ugly deed as legitimate, you must not expect other countries or other groups to give it the same recognition,” he said, sidestepping the point that the foreign criticism of Iran on homosexuality is not that it disapproves of it but that it punishes the practice and on occasion executes homosexuals.
Ahmadi-nejad seemed to argue that relations were bad between the United States and Iran because of American Islamo-phobia. “Perhaps if the politicians in the West would take a better position vis-a-vis thoughts or pictures toward what we hold holy, I think relations would improve,” he said.
“Offending the Holy Prophet is quite ugly. This has very little or nothing to do with freedom of speech. This is a weakness of and abuse of freedom. In many places it is a crime. It shouldn’t take place. And I do hope the day will come in which politicians will not seek to offend those whom others hold holy,” the president proclaimed.
Ahmadi-nejad planned to travel to the UN with a delegation of 160 people, a number that outraged many in Tehran when it was announced. It was announced to criticize the US for refusing visas to 20 of the people the president sought to bring with him.
The Fars news agency said two of those refused US visas were cabinet ministers, though it did not name them.,
The United States refuses visas to people under sanctions for human rights violations or work on missiles and nuclear programs. It also denies visas to anyone linked with the 1979-81 hostage episode.
