Obama, Ahmadinejad trade barbs over Sept. 11

Associated Press

NEW YORK

President Barack Obama and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traded heated remarks Friday on the emotional subject of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and hopes for a quick resumption of talks on Iran’s suspect nuclear program appeared to fade.

Obama accused Ahmadinejad of making “offensive” and “hateful” comments when he said most of the world thinks the United States was behind the attacks to benefit Israel. The Iranian president defended his remarks from a day earlier at the United Nations General Assembly and suggested that a fact-finding panel be created by the U.N. to look into who was behind them.

“It was offensive,” Obama said in an interview with the Persian service of the BBC that was to be broadcast to the Iranian people.

In a news conference at a Manhattan hotel, Ahmadinejad said he had not made any judgments about who was responsible for 9/11 and lashed out at the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as an overreaction to the attacks.