Iran president cancels UN visit in visa row

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip and planned speech at the United Nations Security Council in New York today has been cancelled, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Mohammed Ali Hosseini told Iranian state television last night that Ahmadinejad would not speak before the UN body and that the trip was scrapped because of “America’s obstruction in issuing visas” to the Iranian delegation that was to travel to New York.