Iran’s U.N. ambassador Mohammad Khazaei, left, listens as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, confers with an aide during a press conference Friday in New York.

New York ? Iran would consider ending higher level uranium enrichment, the most crucial part of its controversial nuclear activities, if world powers send Tehran nuclear fuel for a medical research reactor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told reporters Friday.

Addressing a packed press conference in a New York hotel, Ahmadinejad also said Iran was prepared to set a date for resumption of talks with six world powers to discuss Tehran’s nuclear program, saying October would be the likely time for the two sides to meet.

Ahmadinejad also defended his remarks at the U.N. a day earlier in which he claimed most people in the world believe the United States was behind the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and again challenged the United Nations to set up a commission to probe the attacks.

“I did not pass judgment, but don’t you feel that the time has come to have a fact finding committee?” Ahmadinejad asked.

Ahmadinejad said Iran had no interest in enriching uranium from around 3.5 percent to 20 percent purity but was forced to do so after the world powers refused to provide nuclear fuel that is needed for a Tehran reactor that produces medical isotopes for patients. He did not indicate that Iran would stop enriching at low levels.

That level is far below the more than 90 percent purity needed to build a nuclear weapon, but U.S. officials have expressed concern Iran may be moving closer to an ability to reach weapons-grade level.

Tehran began higher enrichment in February after talks stalled over a U.N.-brokered proposal that the United States hoped would — at least temporarily — leave Iran unable to produce a warhead. The U.S. and its allies accuse Iran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon, a claim Iran denies.

“We were not interested to carry out 20 percent enrichment. They (the U.S. and its allies) politicized the issue. We were forced to do it to support the (medical) patients,” Ahmadinejad said in response to a question from The Associated Press. “We will consider halting uranium enrichment whenever nuclear fuel is provided to us.”

Sept. 11 remarks ‘hateful’

In his one and a half hour session with reporters, Ahmadinejad also lashed out at the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as an overreaction to the Sept. 11 attacks. The Americans should “not occupy the entire Middle East … bomb wedding parties … annihilate an entire village just because one terrorist is hiding there.”

Ahmadinejad said a commission should investigate the Sept. 11 attacks rather than have the entire world just accept what the U.S. government tells them.

“The fact-finding mission can shed light on who the perpetrators were, who is Al-Qaida … where does it exist? Who was it backed by and supported? All these should come to light,” he said.

Ahmadinejad’s remarks during a speech to the U.N. General Assembly Thursday afternoon prompted a walkout by the U.S. diplomats. Delegations from all 27 European Union nations followed the Americans out along with representatives from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Costa Rica, an EU diplomat said.

President Barack Obama responded to Ahmadinejad in a BBC Persian service interview Friday saying: “Well, it was offensive. It was hateful.”

“And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable,” Obama said.

Obama said Ahmadinejad’s remarks will make the American people even more wary about dealing with his government.

Pushing for hikers’ release

Later Friday, Ahmadinejad met with Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans who were taken prisoner in Iran during a hiking trip along the border with Iraq. She was released from solitary confinement on Sept. 15 and has said she wants to meet Ahmadinejad while he is in New York.

“I’m just going to keep pushing every minute for their release on humanitarian grounds,” Shourd told ABC News outside a hotel after she and her mother, Nora Shourd, met with the president, who was in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

Shourd, 32, called the encounter “a very gracious gesture and a good meeting,” said Ahmadinejad seemed friendly and that it was “a very human encounter, very personal.”

The Iranian leader did not answer a question about whether Iran would also release Shourd’s boyfriend, Shane Bauer, and their friend Josh Fattal. All three were captured in 2009.