US President Barack Obama yesterday launched a historic, direct appeal to the Iranian people, urging an end to decades of animosity and offering “honest” engagement with the Islamic republic.
A top adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad welcomed Obama’s olive branch, but urged concrete action from Washington to recognize and repair “past mistakes.”
“My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community,” Obama said in a video message marking the Iranian New Year, Nowruz.
In a new and decisive break with his predecessor, George W. Bush, Obama called the celebrations a time of “new beginnings.”
He said he wanted “to speak clearly to Iran’s leaders” about the need for a new era of “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”
Obama said he was committed to pursuing “constructive ties” with Iran, which could take its “rightful place” in the world if it renounced terror and embraced peace.
“For nearly three decades relations between our nations have been strained,” Obama said. “But at this holiday we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together.”
The two nations have not had diplomatic ties since 1980, just after Iran’s Islamic revolution and the taking of US diplomats as hostages for more than a year.
Bush lumped Iran in his “Axis of Evil” with North Korea and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, then led international accusations that Iran was seeking to build nuclear weapons. Iranian officials regularly refer to Washington as the “Great Satan.”
“We welcome the wish of the president of the United States to put away past differences,” the Iranian president’s press adviser, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, said. “The American administration has to recognize its past mistakes and repair them as a way to put away the differences.”
“If Obama shows willingness to take action, the Iranian government will not show its back to him,” Javanfekr said, condemning what he called the “hostile, aggressive and colonialist attitude of the American government.”
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana voiced hope that Obama’s video message could open a “new chapter” in international relations with Iran.
“I think it is a very constructive message,” Solana told reporters in Brussels. “I hope it will open a new chapter in the relations with Tehran. I hope very much that the Iranians will take good attention of what has been said by President Obama.”
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also welcomed the statement.
“The start of substantive dialogue will facilitate the revival of trust in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program,” Ryabkov said.
Obama’s initiative is a tacit recognition that Iran is a key player in several hot-button issues, including how the US extricates itself from Iraq, tackling the Taliban in Afghanistan and progress on the longstanding Middle East conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
The White House said a version of the video with Farsi subtitles was distributed to news outlets in the Middle East yesterday. An online version also carries English and Farsi captions, it said.
Also See: ‘Tonight Show’ hosts Obama
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS