Iranian Leader Is Barred From 9/11 Site

New York officials showed no concern, however, about Ahmadinejad's planned visit uptown. The Iranian leader will speak to students and faculty at Columbia University on Monday. In a statement, university President Lee Bollinger said Ahmadinejad had agreed to a number of conditions, including a pledge to divide his time equally between his remarks and answering questions.

Bollinger also said he had told Iranian officials that he will open the discussion by noting Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust, his public call for the destruction of Israel and his government's imprisonment of several Iranian American scholars, including Kian Tajbakhsh, who earned a PhD and a master of philosophy at Columbia.

Iran announced Thursday that Tajbakhsh is being released after four months in prison.

John Coatsworth, the interim dean of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, said the announcement came "within hours of the final communication between Columbia and the Iranian government, in which we told them we would publicly announce the president's visit. We brought up his case consistently in our conversations with them, but we will never know whether this had an effect or not on his situation."

Columbia first invited Ahmadinejad to speak at the school last year but rescinded the invitation over logistical concerns. Thursday evening, the Bloomberg news agency confused last year's cancellation with next week's invitation and reported that Columbia had again canceled the visit. The erroneous report prompted a congratulatory statement from major Jewish organizations, which called off protests that had been scheduled for the campus.

Coatsworth said he has heard very little dissent inside the university. But New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn wrote to Columbia urging the school to cancel the visit, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) issued a statement condemning the engagement.

"A man who is directing the maiming and killing of [American] troops should not be given an invitation to speak at an American university," McCain said in a statement.

Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.