IRAN'S Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday dismissed overtures from President Barack Obama, saying Tehran does not see any change in US policy under its new administration.
However, there was some hope when he added: "You change, our behaviour will change."
Khamenei was responding to a video message Obama released on Friday in which he reached out to Iran and expressed hopes for an improvement in nearly 30 years of s
trained relations.
Khamenei holds the last word on major policy decisions, and how Iran ultimately responds to any concrete US effort to engage the country will depend largely on his say.
In his most direct assessment of Obama and prospects for better ties, Khamenei said there will be no change between the two countries unless the American president puts an end to US hostility toward Iran and brings "real changes" in foreign policy.
"They chant the slogan of change but no change is seen in practice. We haven't seen any change," Khamenei said in a speech before a crowd of tens of thousands in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad.
In his video message, Obama said the US wanted to engage with Iran, but he also warned that a right place for Iran in the international community "cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilisation".
Khamenei asked how Obama could congratulate and accuse the country of supporting terrorism and seeking nuclear weapons in the same message.
Khamenei said there had been no change even in Obama's language compared with that of his predecessor.
"He (Obama] insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day. If you are right that change has come, where is that change? Make it clear for us what has changed."
But Khamenei left the door open to better ties with America, saying: "Should you change, our behaviour will change too."
Diplomatic ties between the US and Iran were cut following the US Embassy hostage-taking after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which toppled the pro-US Shah and brought to power a government of Islamic clerics.
The United States co-operated with Iran in late 2001 and 2002 in the Afghanistan conflict, but the promising contacts fizzled – and were extinguished completely when George Bush branded Tehran part of the "Axis of Evil".
Khamenei enumerated a long list of Iranian grievances against the United States over the past 30 years and said the US was still interfering in Iranian affairs.
He mentioned US sanctions against Iran, US support for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his 1980-88 war against Iran and the downing of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf in 1988.
He also accused the US of provoking ethnic tension in Iran and said Washington's accusations that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons are a sign of US hostility. Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.
"Have you released Iranian assets? Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials? Have you given up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? Even the language remains unchanged," Khamenei said.
Obama has signalled a willingness to speak directly with Iran about its nuclear program and hostility toward Israel, a key US ally. At his inauguration last month, the president said his administration would reach out to rival states, declaring: "We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist. They say we have stretched a hand toward Iran... If a hand is stretched covered with a velvet glove but it is cast iron inside, that makes no sense," he said.
Khamenei said sanctions only served to make Iran self-reliant. Iran frequently boasts of achievements in various technological fields, including uranium enrichment, space technology, missiles and passenger and fighter plane production, despite sanctions.
"Sanctions benefited us. We have to thank the Americans in this sector. If sanctions had not been imposed, we would have not reached the point of progress and technology we are in now," he said.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has demanded Washington apologise for decades of "crimes" against Iran. Tehran also says it cannot let down its guard as long as US troops are posted on its borders in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Khamenei accused the United States of links with "terrorist movements" operating in border areas near Pakistan and also criticised it for freezing Iranian assets and for backing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
"Iran has many grievances and it expects that the United States would finally come to recognise this," said Professor Mohammad Marandi of North American studies at Tehran University.
"Change does not come about by saying Happy New Year."
Israeli president Shimon Peres has issued a rare Nowruz (the Persian new year) greeting of his own to Iranians, praising what he called "the noble Iranian people" in a message on Israel's Farsi-language radio station, which broadcasts in Iran.
But Peres took a tougher tone in an interview to be aired to Iranians on the station tomorrow, strongly criticising Iran's hardline leaders as "religious fanatics" and predicting that Iranians would overthrow them.
"I think that the Iranian people will topple these leaders," Peres said in the interview, according to a transcript. "These leaders who don't serve the people, in the end the people will realise that."
The full article contains 911 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
