Pastor puts Quran-burning on hold, eyes NY mosque deal

A Florida pastor put on hold Thursday plans to burn hundreds of Qurans and said he would cancel the event if a controversial mosque project near Ground Zero in New York is relocated.

In a day of high-stakes religious brinkmanship, radical evangelist Terry Jones at first announced he had cancelled Saturday’s ceremony, which world leaders fear could ignite a fierce Muslim backlash around the globe. But when his claims of a deal over a proposed Islamic cultural center in New York dissolved in acrimony, he threatened to go ahead with the incendiary ceremony to mark the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“I will be flying up there on Saturday to meet with the imam at the Ground Zero mosque,” Jones said initially. “The American people do not want the mosque there, and, of course, Muslims do not want us to burn the Quran.”

But the imam leading the New York project quickly denied any agreement to move the planned mosque, which is slated for a building two and half blocks from the site of former World Trade Center which was struck by 9/11 hijackers. “I am glad that Pastor Jones has decided not to burn any Qurans,” Feisal Abdul Rauf said in a statement to CNN, but added: “We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter.”

Jones, head of the tiny Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has threatened an international crisis with his promise to immolate the Muslim holy book on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Concern is so high that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates put in a personal phone call to Jones to try and get him to change him mind, warning that the Quran burning would put US soldiers’ lives at risk. This rare decision by President Barack Obama’s administration to cede to Jones’s demand for direct contact followed growing worries of a disaster for US interests worldwide.