I'll try to join you in WC: Ahmadinejad

Tehran: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Iran's national football team on Saturday that he will try to travel to Germany to watch them play in the World Cup if they make it to the second round.

"If you make it to the second round, then I would try to join you," Ahmadinejad told team members at a farewell ceremony for the players who presented him with a national team shirt bearing the number 24 and his name.

Earlier on Saturday, Mohammed Dadkan, head of Iran's Football Federation, told reporters that the President was interested in attending matches if the team made it to the second round. He said the trip would be possible if Ahmadinejad were able to rearrange his schedule.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in an interview with the Bild am Sonntag weekly released Saturday before Ahmadinejad's comments, said she did not think the Iranian president would attend the tournament.

Asked why not, she declined to comment, saying only: "That is not my area of expertise."

In a recent interview with Germany's leading news weekly Der Spiegel, Ahmadinejad left open the question whether or not he planned to travel to Germany to watch the Iranian national team play in the month-long tournament, which starts on June 9.

Iran has qualified for the World Cup in Germany and it is to play against Mexico, Portugal and Angola in Group D and must to achieve one of the top two ranks in the group to qualify for the second round.

On Thursday, a group of European Parliament members sought an indefinite EU travel ban on Ahmadinejad in light of his calls for Israel's destruction and his questioning of the Holocaust.

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly questioned Israel's right to exist, said the country should be wiped off the map and dismissed the Nazi Holocaust as a "myth."

The group also asked FIFA, world soccer's governing body, to prevent Ahmadinejad from going to Germany to watch his team play in the June 9-July 9 World Cup and banning him from traveling to any of the other 24 EU member states.

A travel ban can only be declared by individual EU member states, which is unlikely to happen given the fact that world powers, including Britain, France and Germany, are debating how to resolve the Iran nuclear crisis.

The Council of EU Ministers has declared a travel ban on Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko and 30 other top Belarusian officials following the March presidential elections in the ex-Soviet country, which the EU considered rigged.