Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed a wish to attend the London 2012 Olympics on Thursday, but claimed the British authorities would ‘have issues’ with his presence.
According to official news agency IRNA, Ahmadinejad declared: “The enemies do not want our athletes to win medals, but our young people shall be present at the Olympic Games and give new reasons to take pride in Islamic Iran”. According to Iranian media, 50 athletes have already qualified to represent their country at the games this summer.
The Iranian President’s comments come in contrast to those he made last year, when he claimed he might boycott the London Olympics because their chosen logo, of bold modern 2012 digits, closely resembled the word ‘Zion’ and was therefore ‘racist’. The London Organising Committee refuted this and defended its logo as modern and designed to appeal to a younger audience.
The British government has denied attempts to block the controversial Iranian leader’s presence at the London games and claimed it is a matter for the Olympic committee to issue invitations to individual heads of state. An unnamed source from the foreign office has meanwhile reportedly claimed that Ahmadinejad is not subject to a ban on travelling to the UK.
Relations between Iran and Britain remain at a low, due to Britain’s suspicions regarding Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and Iran’s refusal to submit to an international enquiry. Britain was one of the first European countries to pursue sanctions against the Iranian Central Bank to put pressure on its administration to halt its nuclear programme.
Protestors stormed the British embassy in Tehran in November 2011 in reaction to this, a move which Britain claimed received official authorisation, and Britain closed its embassy there and recalled its staff in response.
The diplomatic crisis is at its worst since dialogue was suspended for ten years when Ayatollah Khomeni issued a fatwa against author Salman Rushdie for his work “The Satanic Verses”. Relations were eventually restored in 1999.

EJP