WASHINGTON, March 20: US President Barack Obama launched an historic direct appeal to the Iranian people on Friday, urging an end to decades of animosity and offering ‘honest’ engagement with the Islamic Republic.

A top adviser to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad welcomed Obama's olive branch, but urged Washington to recognise and repair “past mistakes.”

Obama said in a video message marking the Iranian New Year, Nauroz, that his 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.”

In a new decisive break with his predecessor, President George W. Bush, Obama called the celebrations a time of “new beginnings.” He said he wanted a new era of “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”

Obama said he wanted “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,” he said. “But at this holiday we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together.”

The two nations have had no diplomatic ties since 1980, following Iran's Islamic revolution, the taking of US diplomats as hostages for more than a year and a foiled US military operation to rescue US diplomats.

Bush lumped Iran in his “Axis of Evil” with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, than led international accusations that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear bomb. 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 told AFP in Tehran. But he added: “The American administration has to recognise 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, while condemning what he called the “hostile, aggressive and colonialist attitude of the American government.”

Iran's Energy Minister Parviz Fattah said: “Absolutely this message is positive ... although it might also have negative points in itself as well.” Iran's leaders “will precisely assess this message. We believe that we need that in addition to messages we need positive action from Mr Obama as well as from his government,” the minister said in Islamabad.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana described the Obama video as “a very constructive message” that could “open a new chapter” in international relations with Tehran.—AFP
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