“It would be next to impossible,” Ambassador Javad Zarif told reporters when asked about an early Saturday arrival, without elaborating.
Ahmadinejad wants to address the U.N. Security Council before it imposes new sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program. The meeting is expected on Saturday but major powers were considering last-minute changes in the resolution and a time for the vote has not been set.
In Bern, Switzerland, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy said some 38 visas had been issued, including one for Ahmadinejad, early on Friday, and another 40 for the entourage late in the day once all the paper work was completed.
“The applications were incomplete but they were completed this morning,” said Daniel Wendell, press attache to the embassy. “The two batches amount to about 75 visas,” he said. “That’s a pretty sizable group.”
Asked about the visit, Ambassador Alejandro Wolff, the U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, told reporters, “I hope he comes and has time to visit the Holocaust museum while he is here.”
Ahmadinejad in December held a two-day international conference on the Holocaust that was dominated by speakers who questioned whether 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis and their allies in World War Two.
