Ahmadinejad asks Bush to revise 'language of force'

TEHRAN: Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on his American counterpart George Bush to mind his "language of force".

"Why do you always want to settle world affairs by using force and weapons? This era is finished and we are in the era of thought and culture," Fars news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying on Wednesday.

In a speech on the war on terrorism on Tuesday, Bush called Iran's leaders "tyrants", compared them with Al Qaeda terrorists and said that the world's free nations would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

"Those who have their hand on a bomb while talking cannot guide the world," Ahmadinejad said.

"We are against the use of force and weapons as well as against US and British plans to dominate the world, but we are ready to discuss the issue and listen to their argumentations," the Iranian president added.

Ahmadinejad last month invited Bush to a television debate "under the condition however that nothing is censored".

The White House rejected the invitation as a "distraction" from the nuclear dispute.

"(The US) rejected and came up with the excuse that the Iranian president is threatening us. No, I am not threatening you but it is the world that is threatening you because the world is against injustice," Ahmadinejad said.

"It is now the era of people and nobody should believe that they can sit in their glass houses and rule over the world," he added.