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GAINESVILLE, Florida: A tiny Florida church on Friday sought to quell a storm of protest saying its threatened Koran burning was cancelled, as President Barack Obama pleaded for religious tolerance.
"I want to be clear and confirm one hundred percent that there will not be Korans burning tomorrow (Saturday) at 6:00 pm as was planned," evangelical leader K.A. Paul told a press conference.
Paul has been huddled with Florida pastor Terry Jones this week to discuss Jones' on-again, off-again plans to mark Saturday's anniversary of the September 11 attacks by burning a pile of Korans.
The incendiary gesture has triggered global outrage amid fears it will unleash a wave of Islamic violence targeting Western nations and troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It also comes amid an angry debate in the United States over plans to build an Islamic cultural centre close to the site of the World Trade Centre destroyed in the 2001 attacks.
On the eve of the anniversary, Obama mounted a strident defence of American Muslims, paid tribute to those fighting in US armed forces, and said US citizens must remember who their true enemies were - naming Al-Qaeda and "terrorists."
"We have to make sure that we don't start turning on each other," Obama told a White House news conference.
"We are one nation under God and we may call that God different names, but we remain one nation," he said, adding that Americans must remain clear about the identity of their true foes.
Amid the storm of protest, Jones on Thursday said he was dropping the plans for the Koran burning ceremony, claiming Muslim leaders had agreed to move the site of the new mosque and to hold talks with him in New York on Saturday.
But that was denied by those behind the project, and it remained unclear on Friday whether Jones would be travelling to New York to meet the imam behind the project.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf failed on Friday to meet a two-hour deadline set by the pastor to confirm the talks would go ahead.
"At this time we have not heard from the imam," Jones told a press conference.
"But we are still very, very hopeful that we will meet with him and we are still very convinced through the different channels that we have, that we at this time cannot mention, that this meeting will take place tomorrow."
The events have conspired to mark a turbulent start to the festival of Eid al-Fitr, when Muslims worldwide mark the end of the Ramadan fasting month.
Leaders of mainly Muslim countries including Afghanistan and Indonesia have issued dire warnings against such a provocative act as Koran burning.
Thousands of rock-throwing Afghans assaulted a NATO military outpost as Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an Eid message that burning the Islamic holy book would be "an insult to nations."
"They numbered in their thousands, it is a big crowd," provincial deputy police chief Sayed Hassan Jafary told AFP of the protestors.
In neighbouring Pakistan, hundreds rallied in the central city of Multan and the southern city of Karachi, torching US flags and calling for Jones to be hanged.
Protests also flared in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.
"This threatens peace and international security. This is something that endangers harmony among religious people," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a nationally televised address.
But Jones told MSNBC television earlier Friday that his church did not feel responsible for the wave of angry protests.
- AFP/de
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