Ahmadinejad ready to negotiate with Obama man-to-man

Iran is ready for talks with the United States and invites US president Barack Obama to hold talks in the presence of the media, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said during the second meeting of Iranians living abroad, Fars news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad noted that in September he will visit the US to attend a meeting of the UN General Assembly.

"We are ready to sit down with Mr Obama face-to-face and put the global issues on the table, man-to-man, freely, and in front of the media and see whose solutions are better. We think this is a better approach."

"He (Obama) said he wants to make changes and we welcomed (that). Unfortunately, he did not correctly use historic opportunities," said he, adding that Obama "overly values Zionists."

"Somebody should answer questions whether the US government is dominated by the Zionists or the Zionist regime is controlled by the US government," said Mr Ahmadinejad.