New York’s Helmsley Hotel said it canceled a banquet set for next week when it learned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was on the guest list, saying the man who called the Holocaust a lie was not welcome.
Ahmadinejad was due in New York next week to attend the U.N. General Assembly, and his public appearances outside the meeting have generated controversy in recent years.
“As soon as Helmsley corporate management learned of the possibility of either the Iranian mission or President Ahmadinejad holding a function at the New York Helmsley Hotel, they immediately ordered the cancellation of that function,” hotel spokesman Howard Rubenstein said in a statement.
“Neither the Iranian mission nor President Ahmadinejad is welcome at any Helmsley facility,” the statement said without saying why.
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