Ewen MacAskill in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 June 2009 16.49 BST
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Barack Obama sent a letter to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, before this month's disputed election calling for an improvement in relations, it was reported today.
According to the Washington Times, the US president sent the private letter in May setting out the prospect of "co-operation in regional and bilateral relations" and a resolution of the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme. The message was passed to the Iranian foreign ministry by the Swiss embassy, which represents US interests in Iran.
The White House did not deny the letter had been sent. A spokesman said yesterday: "As you know, we have indicated a willingness to talk for a long time and have sought to communicate with the Iranians in a variety of ways. We have made it clear that any real dialogue – multilateral or bilateral – needed to be authoritative.
"We're not going to get into the specifics of our different ways of communicating, but there is an outstanding direct request from the P5+1 [the five permanent members of the UN security council, Britain, China, France, Russia and the US, plus Germany] that was made on April 8th. The Iranians have yet to respond to that."
Khamenei briefly mentioned the letter in his combative sermon at Friday prayers, during which he accused foreign powers of conspiring to delegitimise the vote.
The Guardian revealed in January that US state department officials had prepared at least five drafts of a letter to be sent to Khamenei aimed at unfreezing US-Iran relations.
When the letter was sent, few if any officials in Washington anticipated the scale of the unrest that would follow the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. The Iranian crackdown on protests in recent days could make it harder for Obama to realise his hopes of direct negotiations with Iran.
Obama may have decided to send the letter before the election to show that the US wanted talks regardless of who won the election. He has adopted a cautious response to the protests, and although he condemned the crackdown for the first time yesterday, he left open the possibility of face-to-face negotiations.
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 June 2009 16.49 BST
larger smaller
Article history
Barack Obama sent a letter to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, before this month's disputed election calling for an improvement in relations, it was reported today.
According to the Washington Times, the US president sent the private letter in May setting out the prospect of "co-operation in regional and bilateral relations" and a resolution of the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme. The message was passed to the Iranian foreign ministry by the Swiss embassy, which represents US interests in Iran.
The White House did not deny the letter had been sent. A spokesman said yesterday: "As you know, we have indicated a willingness to talk for a long time and have sought to communicate with the Iranians in a variety of ways. We have made it clear that any real dialogue – multilateral or bilateral – needed to be authoritative.
"We're not going to get into the specifics of our different ways of communicating, but there is an outstanding direct request from the P5+1 [the five permanent members of the UN security council, Britain, China, France, Russia and the US, plus Germany] that was made on April 8th. The Iranians have yet to respond to that."
Khamenei briefly mentioned the letter in his combative sermon at Friday prayers, during which he accused foreign powers of conspiring to delegitimise the vote.
The Guardian revealed in January that US state department officials had prepared at least five drafts of a letter to be sent to Khamenei aimed at unfreezing US-Iran relations.
When the letter was sent, few if any officials in Washington anticipated the scale of the unrest that would follow the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. The Iranian crackdown on protests in recent days could make it harder for Obama to realise his hopes of direct negotiations with Iran.
Obama may have decided to send the letter before the election to show that the US wanted talks regardless of who won the election. He has adopted a cautious response to the protests, and although he condemned the crackdown for the first time yesterday, he left open the possibility of face-to-face negotiations.
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