Global General

Ahmadinejad says Iran may end higher enrichment

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-09-25 11:21

"Probably in October; we are ready for talks. The doors are open for talks within the framework of justice and respect," he said. However, he warned that Iran won't give in to pressure. "They are definitely mistaken if they think they can trample the rights of the Iranian nation through coercion in the talks."

In his one and a half hour session with reporters, Ahmadinejad also lashed out at the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as an overreaction to the September 11 attacks. The Americans should "not occupy the entire Middle East...bomb wedding parties...annihilate an entire village just because one terrorist is hiding there."

Ahmadinejad also gave no ground on his September 11 remarks in a feisty interview on Fox News in which he was asked he you could insult millions of Americans by saying "such an insane and nutty thing."

"Would you address your own president the same way? Would they ever allow you to?" replied Ahmadinejad, adding that he felt insulted by the interviewer.

Ahmadinejad said a commission should investigate the September 11 attacks rather than have the entire world just accept what the US government tells them.

"The fact-finding mission can shed light on who the perpetrators were, who is Al-Qaida ... where does it exist? Who was it backed by and supported? All these should come to light," he said.

Ahmadinejad's remarks during a speech to the UN General Assembly Thursday afternoon prompted a walkout by the US diplomats. Delegations from all 27 European Union nations followed the Americans out along with representatives from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Costa Rica, an EU diplomat said.

President Barack Obama responded to Ahmadinejad in a BBC Persian service interview Friday saying: "Well, it was offensive. It was hateful."

"And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable," Obama said.

Ahmadinejad routinely makes such remarks, which the West claims are a diversion from heavy international pressure on Tehran to end uranium enrichment and prove that it is not trying to build a nuclear weapon. Iran insists it is enriching uranium only to fuel nuclear reactors to generate electricity.

Iran is under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions as punishment for its failure to make its nuclear ambitions transparent.

Later Friday, Ahmadinejad met with Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans who were taken prisoner in Iran during a hiking trip along the border with Iraq. She was released from solitary confinement on September 15 and has said she wants to meet Ahmadinejad while he is in New York.

The Iranian leader did not answer a question about whether Iran would also release Shourd's boyfriend Shane Bauer and their friend Josh Fattal. All three were captured in 2009.