Koran-Burning Pastor To Meet With Ground Zero Imam

Sep 9, 2010 3 Comments ›› Pat Dollard

Politico:

A Florida minister has announced he will not go forward with a controversial plan to burn copies of the Quran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, saying he will instead travel to New York City on Saturday to meet with the leader of a controversial Islamic community center planned near ground zero.

“We have been in contact with the imam in New York City,” The Rev. Terry Jones said to reporters Thursday outside his church near Gainesville, Fla. “I will be flying up there on Saturday to meet the imam of the ground zero mosque.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Jones Thursday and asked him to call off the Quran-burning event set for the ninth anniversary of the terror attacks, saying it would endanger U.S. troops abroad.

Jones also insisted that he abandoned his plans after the head of the mosque, Imam Feisal Rauf, agreed to move the community center to a different location. But SoHo Properties, developer of the Islamic community center and mosque, quickly issued a statement rejecting Jones’ contention that the project will move .

“The Muslim Community Center called Park51 in Lower Manhattan is not being moved,” read a statement from SoHo Properties, according to ABC News.

A Muslim imam in Florida who appeared with Jones also denied that was the case, saying Rauf had only agreed to meet with Jones.

Imam Muhammad al-Musri, of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, said he believes that Rauf is open to changing the location of the mosque.

“I think he is considering it and it’s a matter of finding an ideal location where he can achieve the same goals and end this controversy,” Musri told CNN.

Though his church has less than 50 members, Jones drew international attention with his plan to sponsor a “Burn the Koran” day to protest Muslim extremism and honor the victims of the 9/11 terror attacks. The planned event drew worldwide coverage – and controversy — drawing the condemnation of political leaders who believed it would expose U.S. troops to retaliatory violence, serve as a call to arms for Islamic militants and stain the nation’s image abroad.

In a taped interview broadcast Thursday, President Barack Obama said Jones would endanger U.S. troops abroad if the “stunt” went ahead as planned, and the White House considered the idea of calling Jones directly, asking him to call it off.

Instead, it was Gates who called. “Secretary Gates reached out to Pastor Jones this afternoon. They had a very brief phone conversation during which the Secretary expressed his grave concern that going forward with the Quran burning would put at risk the lives of our forces around the world, especially those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he urged the Pastor not to proceed with it,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

The fiery minister drew rebukes from Republicans as well: Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin also both had called on Jones to abandon his plans, and conservative televangelist Pat Robertson said the protest was “stupid.”

In addition, Gen. David Petraeus said the Quran burning would endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The State Department issued a worldwide travel alert Thursday warning U.S. citizens to be on guard for anti-U.S. demonstrations overseas, as retaliation for Jones’ plans.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations, lamented the fact that “a pastor in Gainesville, Florida, with a church of no more than 50 people can make this outrageous and distrustful, disgraceful plan and get the world’s attention, but that’s the world we live in right now.’’

Jones had said earlier this week he would consider cancelling his protest if he heard directly from the White House or the Pentagon, but that only divine intervention would get him to officially call it off.

And on Thursday, he suggested that he had received just such a “sign from God” – and changed his mind after the sponsors of the Park51 project told him they would move the center.

“He has agreed to move the location. The imam has agreed to move the mosque. We have agreed to cancel our event on Saturday,” Jones said.

Al-Musri, who appeared at the news conference with Jones, later told a different story.

“What we have is a commitment from the office of the imam [Rauf] for a three-way meeting where myself and the pastor would fly to New York to meet with him to discuss moving that project to an ideal location that’s not controversial,” al-Musri told CNN.

But al-Musri also said any new location would have to meet the same goals as their current location – two blocks from ground zero – in providing a central and easily accessible location for Muslims to gather. “Those are real issues and questions that have to be answered,” he said.

Al-Musri said neither he nor Jones spoke directly to Rauf, but that Musri spoke to Rauf’s wife, Daisy Khan, who has been a sort of unofficial spokesperson for the project.

Al-Musri also said a firm time for a meeting hadn’t been set – and noted he hadn’t yet booked his plane tickets.