The Hill News

The controversial Gainesville, Fla. pastor who had planned to burn copies of the Quran on Saturday will not be flying to New York City as a guest of ABC, the network said Friday. 

Terry Jones, who is at the center of an international media circus over his threats to demonstrate against Islam on the ninth anniversary of Sept. 11, had announced Thursday afternoon that ABC's "Good Morning America" would arrange a trip to New York for him, and that while in the city he would meet with Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the head of the embattled Park51 mosque in lower Manhattan.

Network spokesman Jeffrey Schenider said Friday, however, that ABC will not be involved any such trip, explaining that the offer was made by local ABC staff in Gainesville, where Jones' Dove World Outreach Center is located, but "killed immediately" by senior ABC officials in New York.

The alleged trip sponsored by ABC was not the only portion of the pastor's Thursday statement to be discredited.

Jones had also told reporters that he had decided not to burn copies of the Quran on Saturday because of a deal brokered with Imam Rauf to move the Park51 mosque from its intended site several blocks from Ground Zero to another location. 

Park51 quickly denied t! hat it had agreed to another location and repeated that "the project is moving ahead as planned."