Iran welcomes Obama overture but wants concrete action

A top adviser to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday welcomed US President Barack Obama's olive branch to Tehran but urged him to back his words with concrete action to repair past mistakes.

"We welcome the wish of the President of the US to put away past differences," Mr Ahmadinejad's press adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr told AFP in reaction to Mr Obama's message at Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, in which he urged a resolution of differences and an "honest" engagement with Tehran.

"But the way to do that is not by Iran forgetting the previous hostile and aggressive attitude of the US," Mr Javanfekr said, responding when AFP read to him extracts of Mr Obama's statement.

"The American administration has to recognise its past mistakes and repair them as a way to put away the differences."

Mr Javanfekr said Mr Obama has talked of change but had "not taken any concrete steps to repair the mistakes committed against Iran".

"He has to go further than words and take action. If Obama shows willingness to take action, the Iranian government will not show its back to him."

Mr Javanfekr said Iran wanted to end the "animosities" between the two countries that have had no diplomatic relations since 1980, a year after Iran became an Islamic republic following the toppling of the US-backed shah.

Relations between Washington and Tehran worsened further under former US President George W. Bush who refused to talk to Iran following its nuclear programme and lumped the Islamic republic as part of an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and Iraq.

Iranian officials regularly refer to Washington as the "Great Satan."

Washington for its part is still smarting from the 1979 hostage taking of its diplomats in its Tehran embassy by Iranian Islamist students - the event which led to the severing of diplomatic relations between the two nations.

Mr Javanfekr stressed that Mr Obama has to make a "fundamental change in attitude" and take "the opportunity presented by Nowruz, which signifies a change in the nature (start of spring)."

He said the differences referred to by Mr Obama are a result of the "hostile, aggressive and colonialist attitude of the American government".

"The US is mainly responsible for these differences and if it does not address them, they will remain," he said.