Pastor calls off planned Koran burning after global protests

Published on Thursday 9 September 2010 16:25

The pastor who planned an "International Burn-a-Koran Day" tomorrow called off the protest last night after his plans were widely condemned.

•About 200 lawyers gathered in Multan, Pakistan, to protest against Terry Jones's proposed 'Burn-a-Koran Day' Picture: Getty Images

Foreign Secretary William Hague was among those who condemned Pastor Terry Jones, who leads a tiny Florida church, describing his plan as "selfish and provocative in the extreme".

Mr Jones said he had called off the book-burning after he agreed to meet the imam of a proposed mosque in New York, close to the site of the 11 September, 2001 terrorist attacks.

• German flock expelled Pastor Jones 'for his extremist views'

• Protests over 9/11 anniversary plan to burn Koran spread to capital

He claimed the imam had agreed to change the location of the mosque.

"Our thought was, the American people do not as a whole want the mosque at the Ground Zero location, that if they were willing to either cancel the mosque at the Ground Zero location or if they were willing to move that location, if they were willing to move it away from that location, we would consider that a sign from God," Mr Jones said in a live television broadcast last night.

He said he would accompany a local imam to New York tomorrow to meet Imam Rauf.

"He has agreed to move the location. That of course cannot happen overnight but he has agreed to move that," he said.

"The American people do not want the mosque there and of course Muslims do not want us to burn the Koran.

"The imam has agreed to move the mosque. We have agreed to cancel our event on Saturday and on Saturday I will be flying up there to meet him."

Imam Muhammed Musri, head of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, said: "Because I, like many Americans, Muslims or not, feel that the placement of a mosque near the Ground Zero location is unnecessary and it has become a clear provocation to many people to be violent against mosques across the nation, I have made this morning contact with the office of the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and got the commitment to fly up to New York and meet with him in the company of Pastor Jones."

But the BBC reported last night that the developers of the Ground Zero site had said in a statement that there were no plans to move the mosque.

A spokesman for Donald Trump has revealed the billionaire developer has offered to buy out one of the major investors in the partnership that controls the site near Ground Zero earmarked for the 13-storey Islamic centre and mosque.

In a letter released by Trump's publicist, the billionaire businessman told Hisham Elzanaty he would buy his stake for 25 per cent more than he had paid.

Last night shadow foreign secretary David Miliband said: "This unacceptable act would have been dangerous, destructive and fundamentally wrong.

"The international condemnation has shown the world will not stand for this kind of behaviour.It's important that the global opinion against this act is shown to be the true representative voice of all those who have mutual respect for all religions."

In a statement earlier, Mr Hague had said: "The burning of the Koran would be offensive not just to Muslims but to all supporters of religious freedom and tolerance worldwide. "Eid is a time of celebration, charitable giving and family gathering."