75 Euro MPs seek to ban Ahmadinejad from World Cup tournament

The 75 parliamentarians, who are members of the main political groups in the European parliament, sent their appeal to the EU's Austrian rotating presidency and to the international football federation (FIFA), AKI reports.

"A visit of Ahmadinejad to Europe would send the wrong signal to Europeans, the international community and in particular the Iranian people suffocated" by the lack of human rights, the petition said.

Jewish and secular human rights groups in Germany are also campaigning against a World Cup visit by Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly claimed that the Holocaust never existed and that Israel should be destroyed.

The Iranian president's spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham has said that Ahmanadinejad will not travel to Germany to watch the Iranian team play. However, opinionists say he will not be able to avoid doing so should Iran qualify for the second round of the World Cup.

A ban on Ahmadinejad is however unlikely at a very delicate time for international diplomacy. World powers are currently negotiating a package of incentives and penalties drafted by Britain, Germany and France to convince Iran to give up its nuclear programme, which the West fears is aimed at building nuclear weapons.

The Iranian national football team is scheduled to play against Mexico in Nuremberg on 11 June, Portugal in Frankfurt on the 17th and Angola in Leipzig on the 21st.

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