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.
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