NEW YORK -- Officials on Wednesday decided to reject the Iranian president's request to visit ground zero just weeks after the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The decision came in a meeting that included representatives of the NYPD, the Secret Service and the Port Authority, according to police.

NYPD officials confirmed in a statement that earlier this month the department received a request from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit the World Trade Center site during the United Nations General Assembly. Ahmadinejad asked permission to lay a wreath at the site.

The request to enter the fenced-in site was rejected because of ongoing construction there, police spokesman Paul Browne said. "Requests for the Iranian president to visit the immediate area would also be opposed by the NYPD on security grounds," Browne said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said earlier Wednesday that the city was considering Ahmadinejad's request, but Browne said about two hours later that Kelly had misspoke.

The Port Authority, which owns the trade center site and is the only agency that could grant Ahmadinejad permission to go inside, said it never received such a request, contradicting the police statement.

"We have not been asked to accommodate the president of Iran," Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said Wednesday.

It wasn't clear whether Ahmadinejad wanted to descend to the base of the trade center site, where the fallen twin towers stood, or lay a wreath on a public sidewalk outside the site. Telephone calls to the Iranian Mission to the United Nations were not immediately returned.