JAKARTA, May 11: Iran’s president said on Thursday he was ready to hold talks with the United States and its allies over his country’s nuclear ambitions, but warned that efforts to force Tehran to the negotiating table by threatening economic sanctions or military action could backfire.

Mr Ahmadinejad also continued his verbal attacks on Israel _ last year he said the Jewish state should be ‘wiped off the map’ and questioned whether the Holocaust was a myth _ calling it a ‘a tyrannical regime that one day will be destroyed’.

“The big powers ... have a lot of nuclear weapons in their warehouse,” Mr Ahmadinejad said during a visit to the world’s largest Muslim majority nation.

“We want to use technology for peace and the welfare of the Muslim people around the world,” he told students who gathered at Islamic University on Jakarta’s southern outskirts. “But they want to use it to invade other countries. This is the difference between us and them.”

Mr Ahmadinejad received a warm welcome in Indonesia, where his willingness to criticise the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan _ seen by many here as attacks on Islam _ his outspoken criticism of Israel, and his refusal to stand down to international pressure on the nuclear dispute resonates with many of its young people.

“I think you are the man of the year,” one student stood to say. “We will always be with you. You will never walk alone,” said another.—AP