Weeks before the disputed Iranian presidential polls, US President Barack Obama had sent a direct message to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seeking "dialogue and engagement" between the two estranged nations.
Quoting Iranian sources, CNN reported on Thursday that Obama's letter requested dialogue and engagement. The sources said that Khamenei had yet to reply to the letter but that nonetheless it "had set the negotiating table in order for both sides to sit around it after the election."
The White House refused to "get into the specifics of our different ways of communicating," the network quoted a senior Obama Administration official as saying. We have indicated a willingness to talk for a long time and have sought to communicate with the Iranians in a variety of ways," the official said.
Obama's letter to Khamenei is in keeping with his publicly stated aim of engagement with Iran, the report said. The Obama Administration has "made it clear that any real dialogue -- multilateral or bilateral -- needed to be authoritative," the official said.
Khamenei made an indirect reference to Obama's letter in his sermon last Friday at Tehran University, the report said."The US President said that we were waiting for a day like this to see people on the street," it quoted the Iranian leader as saying.
An Iranian source said the election dispute is wasting time on the issue of starting US-Iranian negotiations. "The longer it is delayed, the less likely [US-Iranian talks] will happen." The source said he is waiting for "real change" even though Teheran welcomed the change in tone of the Obama Administration before the current election turmoil in Iran.
Meanwhile, under intense scrutiny amid growing concerns over Tehran's violent crackdown on street protests, Obama has sharpened his language on Iran. "The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments of the last few days," Obama said on Tuesday, adding that he strongly condemns "these unjust actions."
He has not spoken in support of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his main rival, Mir Hossein Moussavi, whose supporters have taken to the streets to protest the results of the June 12 election that gave Ahmadinejad a second term.
