24 March 2009

Al-Manaar -- Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei said on Saturday the Islamic republic is ready to change if US President Barack Obama leads the way by changing American attitude towards the Islamic Republic.

Speaking a day after Obama offered Tehran a "new beginning" to turn back the tide on decades of mutual animosity, Sayyed Khamenei said Iran is yet to see any change in Washington's attitude towards

Tehran. "We have no experience with the new American government and the new American president. We will observe them and we will judge. If you change your attitude, we will change our attitude," Imam Khamenei said in an address to thousands of Iranians in the holy city of Mashhad on the occasion of Nowruz (Iran’s new year) which was broadcast on state television.

"Change only in words is not enough. Change must be real," his eminence said.

In an historic online video message marking Nowruz on Friday, Obama urged an end to decades of animosity and offered "honest" engagement with the Islamic republic.In a decisive break with Bush, Obama called Nowruz celebrations a time of "new beginnings" and said Iran could take its "rightful place" in the world if it renounced terror and embraced peace. He, however, echoed US old accusations against Iran, saying Tehran had 'a choice' to abandon what Washington considers as Iran's effort to sponsor terrorism throughout the world.

"The American leaders and others must know that they can't deceive our nation or scare it."
Sayyed Khamenei accused Washington of having a "hostile" attitude towards Tehran since the Islamic revolution toppled the US-backed shah in 1979.

"They supported all the terrorist and opponent groups" against Iran, he said. "We can see the American hand behind these groups. Unfortunately, this support is still continuing," he said, adding that US-backed groups were also aiding rebels fighting Iranian security forces along the Iran-Pakistan border.

Highlighting the three-decades old animosity, Khamenei said Iran would not forget American support to Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 war between Iran and Iraq or the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988 by a US warship that killed all 290 passengers on board. "In all these years, they carried out hostile propaganda against our country, especially in the past eight years," Imam Khamenei said, referring to the tenure of George W. Bush.

The White House, meanwhile, said it has more steps planned to entice Iran to engage in dialogue with the United States.

The New York Times reported Saturday, citing unnamed officials and diplomats, that among other measures being weighed by the US administration are a direct communication from Obama to (Imam) Khamenei, and an end to a prohibition on direct contacts between junior US diplomats and their Iranian counterparts around the world.