Germany urged to keep Iran president away from World Cup

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre today expressed concern over the possibility that Iran’s hard-line president might attend the World Cup in Germany and urged Berlin to declare him “persona non grata”.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has drawn international outrage for labelling the Nazi Holocaust a myth and calling for Israel’s destruction.

He has not said whether he will travel to the World Cup, where Iran are one of the 32 nations competing.

The German government has said a visit would be problematic but that, like other heads of state, he has a right to attend.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre urged the government to keep Ahmadinejad out in a letter to Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

“After his denial of the Holocaust, his calls ’to wipe Israel off the world map’, his encouragement to global terrorism and his nuclear threats, President Ahmadinejad should not be welcome in Berlin,” the letter said, according a statement from the European office of the Los Angeles-based organisation.

The centre “urged that Iran’s president be declared persona non grata”.