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.
