Florida Church Cancels Plan To Burn Korans

In the latest twist of a story that has generated feverish media coverage and raised tensions around the globe, the pastor of a small Christian church in the U.S. state of Florida says he has cancelled plans to burn copies of the Koran on the 9th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks.

Terry Jones said his congregation made the decision after hearing that the imam of a controversial planned mosque and Islamic cultural center near the site of the World Trade Center in New York City had agreed to relocate the facility.

"The imam has agreed to move the mosque. We have agreed to cancel our event on Saturday," said Jones, who announced the apparent exchange of concessions to reporters outside his church in Gainesville, Florida. "And on Saturday, I will be flying [to New York City] to meet with [the imam]," he added.

The pastor said he saw the relocation of the mosque as a "sign from God" that he had accomplished his goal. He had described his plan to burn Korans on the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks as a "new way" to confront terrorism.

Shortly after Jones's announcement, however, Imam Feisal Adbul Rauf, the imam of the planned center in lower Manhattan, denied that he had agreed to relocate the facility. He said he welcomed Jones's decision "not to burn any Korans," but had not spoken to Jones, adding, "Nor are we going to barter."

The deal was said to have been brokered by Muhammad Musri, a Florida imam who has consulted with Jones in recent days. Musi later conceded that he had not spoken directly with the Rauf and that no actual offer to move the facility had been made.

The New York City center has generated intense controversy, with opponents arguing that its location a few blocks from the site of the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001 is insensitive to the victims and their family members.

President Barack Obama has expressed his support for the right of the developers to build the Islamic center and emphasized the distinction between radical extremists and the religion of Islam itself.

Earlier today, Obama dismissed Jones's plans to burn Korans as "destructive," and said the move would inflame tensions in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan and could represent a "recruitment bonanza" for terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, the group behind the September 11 attacks.

"If [Pastor Terry Jones] is listening, I just hope he understands that what he is proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans, that this country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance," said Obama.

U.S. military leaders, foreign heads of state, and religious leaders around the globe also denounced the plans. The Pentagon said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates telephoned Jones earlier today to personally ask him not to proceed.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking Wednesday at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington, D.C. think tank, described the Florida protest as a reckless action that does not reflect mainstream thinking in the United States.

"It's regrettable that a pastor in Gainesville, Florida, with a church of no more than 50 people, can make this outrageous and distressful, disgraceful plan and get the world's attention," said Clinton. "But that's the world we live in right now. It doesn't in any way represent America, or Americans, or American government, or American religious or political leadership."

Officials in countries with large Muslim populations like Indonesia, Malaysia, and India also appealed to Obama to stop Jones.

Little is known about Jones's Dove World Outreach Center, which has no official affiliation with other religious organizations and has just 50 members. The church follows the Pentecostal tradition, whose followers believe in the direct experience of the presence of God, and see the Bible as the literal word of God.

Jones has presided over the church for just two years. Prior to that, he served as the pastor of an affiliated evangelical church that he founded in the 1980s in Cologne, Germany.

He was ousted from his position in 2008 for what German evangelical authorities called "untenable theological statements and an addiction to personal recognition." Members of the Cologne church have described a "climate of fear and control" under his leadership. 

written with agency material