Columbia president: Ahmadinejad experience was positive

October 01, 2007

New York - The president of Columbia University said that the overall experience of having Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak at his university was a good one.

The president of Columbia University that the overall experience of having Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak at his university was a good one.

"What really mattered was that several thousand students came to meet a teacher who doesn't teach there, but they sat down with me for over one hour," he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "We debated, we talked, they heard and thought about the issues that I raised and that, to me, was most valuable."

Prior to his talk, Columbia President Lee Bollinger -- who had been criticized by some for extending an invitation to the Iranian leader to speak at the Ivy League institution -- cited Ahmadinejad's labeling of the Holocaust as a "myth," said that was "dangerous propaganda" and called the Iranian leader "either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated."

About his reception, Ahmadinejad said, "I wish that hadn't happened, but nonetheless I think academic students and universities have the ability to make their own judgments, to keep themselves away from such pressures and expand their horizons."