TEHRAN, March 21: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday the Islamic republic was ready to reciprocate if US President Barack Obama changed the American attitude towards his country.

“If you change your attitude, we will change our attitude,” Mr Khamenei said in a groundbreaking address to thousands of Iranians in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad which was broadcast on state television.

Speaking a day after President Obama offered Tehran a “new beginning” to turn back the tide on decades of mutual animosity, Mr Khamenei — the final decision maker on Iranian strategic issues — said Iran was 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,” he said.

“We cannot see any change. What is the change in your policy? Did you remove the sanctions? Did you stop supporting the Zionist regime? Tell us what you have changed. We can’t see change even in the words of the new American president. Change only in words is not enough. Change must be real,” he said.

“The American leaders and others must know that they can’t deceive our nation or scare it.”

He accused Washington of having had 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 aiding rebels fighting Iranian security forces along the Iran-Pakistan border.

“The new American government wants to negotiate. They say to forget the past and are extending their hand. But if it is an iron hand in a velvet glove, it won’t have a good meaning,” he said.

Highlighting the three-decade old animosity, Mr 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,” the powerful cleric said, referring to the tenure of George W. Bush.

Mr Khamenei noted that Mr Obama, in his message, had accused Iran of supporting terrorism. “He congratulated Iranians for the new year, but in the same speech he accused Iranians of supporting terrorism and looking for nuclear weapons,” he said.

“We don’t know who is taking decisions in the United States.. is it the president, or the Congress, or somebody else? But we are acting logically and not emotionally.”

Mr Khamenei also warned that if Washington did not make changes in its policy towards Tehran, it would be more disadvantageous to it than to Iran.

“You put sanctions on our country for 30 years but it benefitted us and we became stronger. We actually thank the Americans for that,” he said as the crowd chanted “Death to America! Death to Israel! Khamenei is the leader!”—AFP
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