Ahmadinejad challenges Bush to TV debate

"I suggest we talk with Mr Bush, the president of the United States, in a live television debate about world issues and ways out of these standoffs. We would voice our opinions and they would too," he told a news conference.

The debate "should be uncensored, above all for the American public," said Ahmadinejad, who earlier this year sent Bush a letter in the first contact in decades between leaders of the two arch-foes.

But the outspoken president said that such a debate would not necessarily mean reopening dialogue with the United States, which froze diplomatic relations with Iran after the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979.

"Debate is different from dialogue, dialogue has other conditions we have said our position on that before."

But he added that dialogue was also possible with "the ones who show a frown to our nations if the conditions are fulfilled".