Ahmadinejad to Obama: See Iran as ‘friend’

NEW YORK
Sept. 23: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged President Barack Obama to see Iran as a potential friend instead of a threat.
The Iranian leader also said in a wide-ranging interview on Tuesday that he expects “free and open” discussion of nuclear issues at a meeting next week with six world powers, but stressed that his country would not negotiate on its own nuclear plans.
He sought to open a wider nuclear dialogue with the West, and said the onus should be on the US and other major nuclear powers to give up their weapons and to expand opportunities for all countries to make peaceful use of nuclear power.
Speaking to reporters and editors just hours after arriving in the US, Mr Ahmadinejad said he will seek a quick resolution to the case of three American hikers jailed in Iran.
He dismissed last week’s US shift away from a planned long-range missile shield in Europe, meant to guard against an Iranian strike, as “a respectful way of buying out” Russian objections. “I heard Mr Obama saying the next threat is Iran. Iran is an opportunity for everyone,” Mr Ahmadinejad said.
The Iranian leader said Mr Obama is not the first US President to believe Iran is a threat and said the President should read up on history “to see what the fate is of viewing these problems from this perspective.”
“Historically, whoever made friends with Iran saw a lot of opportunities,” Mr Ahmadinejad said. The Iranian President’s remarks on those and other issues in an hour-long interview at his New York hotel appeared designed to present his country as open to a broad international dialogue.
Meanwhile, Mr Ahmadinejad is muting his remarks on the Holocaust, an event he has frequently questioned as a matter of historical fact. Using markedly less confrontational language than he has in the past, Mr Ahmadinejad said he is not interested in debating historical details. Instead, he says he wants to focus on what he calls the wrong done to Palestinians who lost their land when Israel was formed.