Group asks hotel not to host Ahmadinejad

NEW YORK, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- A group with ties to the White House is lobbying to stop a tony New York hotel from housing Iranian delegates to the U.N. General Assembly, a letter shows.

No business in New York should be accommodating Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because his country sponsors terrorism, seeks nuclear arms and advocates the destruction of Israel, said United Against Nuclear Iran, a bipartisan group that counts Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke and Middle East aide Dennis Ross as members.

"United Against Nuclear Iran has learned that the InterContinental The Barclay New York has agreed to host President Ahmadinejad and the Iranian delegation (during the U.N. visit)," the organization's President Mark Wallace wrote in a Sept. 4 letter to Barclay New York general manager Leland Lewis. The New York Post obtained a copy of the letter.

The 64th U.N. General Assembly begins next week. Ahmadinejad, in his first major trip to a Western country since his controversial re-election in June, is scheduled to address the international organization later in September. Demonstrations in Iran challenging the legitimacy of his election resulted in deaths, a government crackdown and mass trials of those arrested.

"By accommodating the Iranian delegation, the InterContinental not only endorses President Ahmadinejad's election, but also turns a blind eye to the regime's flagrant violations of human rights and its commitment to illegally developing nuclear weapons," Wallace wrote.

In his letter, Wallace urged the hotel to refuse to host Ahmadinejad and "join the international community in condemning Iran's illegal nuclear weapons program and its disregard for human rights."