[Please try to read the WHOLE article before jumping to the conclusion they are trying to get you to buy. Or don't, your loss.]
 Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran was "a peaceful nation" |
Columbia President Lee Bollinger described Mr Ahmadinejad as a "cruel dictator" who denied the Holocaust.
In response, Mr Ahmadinejad called the remarks "an insult", adding that more research was needed on the Holocaust.
He again defended Tehran's right to have "a peaceful nuclear energy" and said there were no homosexuals in Iran.
Speaking to US media earlier, Mr Ahmadinejad said that Iran is not heading for war with the US.
Washington accuses Iran of seeking to build a nuclear bomb and arming insurgents in Iraq - Tehran rejects the charges.
Mr Ahmadinejad has been denied a visit to the site of the 11 September attacks in New York in 2001, with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying that "it would have been a travesty".
"This is somebody who is the president of a country that is probably the greatest sponsor - state sponsor - of terrorism," Ms Rice told CNBC television.
'Brazen'
Mr Ahmadinejad was invited to Columbia University to address its students at the university's World Leaders Forum.
He received a hostile welcome from Mr Bollinger, who described the Iranian leader as "a petty and cruel dictator".
"You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," Mr Bollinger told Mr Ahmadinejad, referring to his denial of the Holocaust.
In response, Mr Ahmadinejad said that Mr Bollinger's remarks were "an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience".
Addressing the Holocaust issue, Mr Ahmadinejad said he simply wanted more research to be done.
He also said the issue was abused by Israel to justify what he said was its mistreatment of the Palestinians.
"Why is it that the Palestinian people are paying the price for an event they had nothing to do with?" Mr Ahmadinejad asked.
'Evil has landed'
Many Americans had said he should not have been invited to speak.
The New York Daily News's front page headline on Monday read "The Evil Has Landed", while the New York Post described Mr Ahmadinejad as "Madman Iran Prez".
Dozens of protesters gathered outside the university on Sunday with placards saying: "Don't give a platform to hate," and calling the Iranian leader a "Hitler wannabe".
Mr Ahmadinejad has called in the past for an end to the Israeli state and described the Holocaust as a "myth".
Mr Bollinger defended the university's invitation, saying it was a question of free speech and academic freedom.
Tickets to the event were snatched up within an hour of becoming available.
The Iranian leader is in New York to attend the UN General Assembly, where he is due to speak on Tuesday.
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