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
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat