Ahmadinejad Wants to Buy Enriched Uranium From the U.S.

In an interview with Newsweek, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he hopes to discuss purchasing enriched uranium from the United States at the next Geneva meeting. He confirmed that the regime has an operating nuclear reactor in Tehran that produces medicines, and called Iran's search for enriched uranium a "humanitarian" pursuit.

"We simply don't have the capacity to enrich at 20 percent for medicinal purposes, of the sort that we have in mind, at this stage," Ahmadinejad said. "It's only at 3.5 percent. We had been buying this material in the past, but not from the U.S. government. We can buy it from the United States. It doesn't really matter who we buy it from, so we are open to it. But this does not affect the fuel cycle. But still, it seems to me a nice opening, a nice window to look through." Asked if he would promise to never build nuclear weapons, Ahmadinejad said "the premise that countries should or should not have nuclear weapons is wrong to begin with."

Newsweek's Lally Weymouth and Washington Post editors pressed Ahmadinejad on a range of issues, from Iran's imprisonment of Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari to his continued denial of the Holocaust. The Iranian president continually deferred to his country's judicial system, which he defended as strong and fair. He said he had no authority over Bahari's release or the treatment of protesters who defied the regime earlier this year.

Ahmadinejad regretfully acknowledged that 60 million people were killed in World War II, but said the Holocaust is used "as a pretext to commit genocide against the Palestinian people." And though he said President Obama has put the U.S. on the "right track," he says the invasion of Afghanistan was an inappropriate response to the 3,000 American deaths on 9/11. "Have they managed to reappear and be alive again after the crimes were carried out in Afghanistan? Not only that, but tens of thousands have been killed as the result. You cannot wash blood with blood."

Ahmadinejad's Nuclear Offer [Newsweek]