Florida pastor: 'No plans to burn Koran'

The pastor of a small Florida church says he no longer plans to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks and hopes a Muslim imam will organise a meeting with those planning an Islamic centre near the site of the New York attacks.

Speaking during a television interview pastor Terry Jones said: "Right now we have plans not to do it."

"We believe that the imam is going to keep his word, what he promised us yesterday ... We believe that we are, as he said, and promised, going to meet with the imam in New York tomorrow," he added.

On Thursday Pastor Terry Jones agreed to cancel the book-burning after he said he was promised that a proposed mosque in New York would be moved away from the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Later outside his church in Gainesville, Florida, Mr Jones claimed he was "lied to" after Imam Muhammad Musri, the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, and the leader of the New York mosque said there was no such deal.

His plans were met with international condemnation with US President Barack Obama calling it a 'recruiting bonanza for al Qaeda'.