U.N. Chief Meets With Ahmadinejad
Benny Avni
June 4, 2008
The New York Sun
Original Source: http://www.nysun.com/foreign/ahmadinejad-ban-italy/79196/

UNITED NATIONS — On the same day Secretary-General Ban met with President Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader told reporters that the European people love to hear his frequent calls to wipe out one of the United Nations's 192 members, Israel. 
Yesterday's meeting in Rome underlined the increasingly chaotic state of a U.N. conference on food shortages, at which Zimbabwe's dictator, Robert Mugabe, has been given a platform to disparage perceived enemies such as Britain. Thirty world leaders, gathered in the Italian capital to discuss food aid, have instead heard Mr. Ahmadinejad blame powerful and international capitalists for rising food and energy prices.
Messrs. Ban and Ahmadinejad yesterday discussed Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and the Iran nuclear issue, a U.N. spokeswoman, Marie Okabe, told The New York Sun. Mr. Ban said that Iran needs to resolve its nuclear issue through dialogue and in a way consistent with all relevant Security Council resolutions on the issue.
The utility of meetings between Western leaders and Mr. Ahmadinejad has become a source of contention beyond the American presidential campaign trail. The European Union's top negotiator with Iran, Javier Solana, has been unable to secure a meeting on the nuclear issue with Tehran's leading mullahs for months.
We expect to hear that the secretary-general told the Iranian president that he was in violation of three Security Council resolutions, that he should comply with international demands to stop enriching uranium, and to stop the crazy talk, a spokesman for the American mission to the United Nations, Richard Grenell, said.
Secretary of State Rice and other Bush administration officials have said in the past that American and Iranian officials have a number of issues to discuss, but a high-level meeting can take place only after Iran obeys Security Council resolutions, particularly the demand that it suspend its uranium enrichment.
Iran's enrichment of uranium continues, and the international condition for a dialogue with them is suspending it, the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, said yesterday. Israel is working to ensure that the international community continues to insist on this condition even as there are those in the world who try to initiate other ideas.
Diplomacy aimed at stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon will be meaningful only if the military option remains on the table, Ms. Livni added.
Iranian officials increasingly are emphasizing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's prophecy that Israel will be erased from the map of the region, but the Western response has been muted.
The people of Europe have suffered the most harm from Zionists, and today the costs of that falsified regime, whether political or economic, are on Europe's shoulders, Mr. Ahmadinejad said on arriving in Rome. People love what I say because they are trying to save themselves from the oppression of Zionists.
Mr. Ban's spokesmen declined to say whether the secretary-general brought up in yesterday's meeting Mr. Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for the destruction of Israel. They noted, however, that Mr. Ban has consistently denounced such calls in the past.
The U.N.-affiliated Food and Agriculture Organization is hosting the three-day food conference in Rome, where yesterday Mr. Ahmadinejad blamed the bullying powers for creating a food crisis and called for the formation of an independent and powerful body that would justly regulate food distribution.
Mr. Mugabe, who critics say has single-handedly transformed his country from a food exporter into a starving nation, is in to Rome despite a European Union travel ban that bars him from entering the continent. (The ban does not apply to U.N. meetings.)
Mr. Ban met with Mr. Mugabe yesterday and highlighted the need to stop the violence in Zimbabwe and to deploy neutral international observers for a second round of presidential voting on June 27, Ms. Okabe said. Mr. Ban suggested his envoy, Haile Menkerios, would be sent to Zimbabwe to discuss ways of how the United Nations can help in the election process, she added.
Zimbabwe's state-controlled TV station, ZTV, reported that Mr. Mugabe turned Mr. Ban's request down.
The World Bank has reported that food prices have doubled in the last three years, to a 30-year high, sparking food riots in countries such as Egypt and Haiti.
In a speech yesterday, Mr. Ban called for bold and urgent steps to address the root causes of this global food crisis. Food output needs to rise 50% by 2030 to meet rising demand, he said.