According to Fars News Agency eight MPs will accompany Ahmadinejad to the UN’s General Assembly this week:
“All the five representatives of (Iran’s) religious minorities along with three other lawmakers will accompany the president in his trip to New York,” member of the parliament’s Presiding Board Hojjatoleslam Seyed Mohammad-Reza Mirtajeddini told FNA. Ahmadinejad will leave Tehran on Tuesday and is due to address the UN General Assembly meeting on its inauguration day along with US President Barack Obama and Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi.
Earlier this month, Ahmadinejad’s office announced that it was working on the president’s itinerary for the visit to New York, mentioning that the office had received a number of requests and proposals in the same regard. Meeting Iranian expatriates in the US, conferring with the participating heads of state, attending interviews with US media, meeting different religious leaders and addressing American students are among the same requests which might have been included in Ahmadinejad’s agenda for the trip.
Speaking from our own experience here in Washington, DC, it has become clear that the majority of groups and individuals who have met with Ahmadinejad on his past visits to New York are now organizing a campaign to boycott such events. In previous years, progressive leaders, religious organizations, and Iran scholars have often met with the Iranian delegation to the UNGA. However, in light of this year’s disputed presidential election and the violent crackdown on dissent in Iran, nearly all of these would-be guests of the President’s have declined any and all invitations to meet.
Press TV is also reporting that Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has arrived in New York on Monday to take part in the general debates of the 64th session of the UN General Assembly.