Iran’s president has failed in his attempt to secure an audience with Pope Benedict XVI during the United Nations food summit underway in Rome.

Press reports have interpreted Benedict’s decision not to meet with any of the heads of state and government present at the summit (who include France’s Vatican-friendly President Nicolas Sarkozy) as a way of avoiding the incendiary Iranian leader.

But the Vatican press office today issued a statement dismissing such inferences as “journalistic conjectures,” and insisting that there was no simply time for the pope to receive all the world leaders who wanted to meet with him.