Ahmadinejad challenges Obama to debate

TEHRAN, May 26 (UPI) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says if he's re-elected he'll challenge his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, to a face-to-face debate.

Speaking to reporters Monday in Tehran, Ahmadinejad also ruled out direct nuclear talks with other nations, saying he would only work within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, CNN reported.

The Iranian president faces a re-election contest June 12. On Monday he repeated a challenge made last year to then-U.S. presidential nominees Obama and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to hold debates with them.

"I will extend that invitation one more time, so that there and then at the United Nations headquarters, President Obama sits there at the table and discusses world issues management and the way toward peace," the U.S. broadcaster reported Ahmadinejad as saying.

The hard-line Iranian president also denied there was any kind of nuclear cooperation between Tehran and North Korea, saying, "We're opposed to nuclear proliferation; we're opposed to storing nukes. We have announced this repeatedly."