Region | Iran
Iran says Washington must make an effort to change policy
In Iran's first official reaction to the US election announcement, an adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said newly elected Barack Obama must now stick to his promises.
- Agencies
- Published: 21:54 November 5, 2008
- Demonstrators burn the American flag during a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran on Monday.
- Image Credit: Reuters
Tehran: In Iran's first official reaction to the US election announcement, an adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said newly elected Barack Obama must now stick to his promises.
"He promised to create changes. We also believe that changes are an unavoidable necessity. America should change its policies," Ahmad Javanfekr told Iran's Arabic Al Alam state television.
The two countries are at loggerheads over Iran's disputed nuclear work. Washington says Tehran is seeking an atomic bomb. Tehran says it wants the technology to make electricity so it can save more of its vast oil and gas resources for export.
Criticised
Obama, like Bush, has not ruled out military action, although he has criticised the outgoing administration for not pushing for more diplomacy and engagement with Iran.
"Change of political figures is not important by itself. What is more important is a change of American policy," Ali Aghamohammadi, a close aide to Iran's most powerful figure, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said.
"I hope that our relations with [the US] will improve as Obama has talked of direct negotiations with the Iran," said Mona Saremi, a 22-year-old student.
But some analysts were cautious, saying Obama had to show he was offering more than a change in style from Bush.
"It is for the Americans to show that something has changed, not the Iranians," Tehran University professor Mohammad Marandi said.
But a change from the Bush administration might undermine the radicals in Iran who benefit from the tense situation.
"Radicals [in Iran] are not very happy that Obama has been elected," said one Iranian politician, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Opportunity and test
Meanwhile, prominent Iranian MP Hamid Reza Haji Babai on Wednesday welcomed the US presidential victory of Democrat Barack Obama as an "opportunity and test," with Iran now "waiting for that change."
"The election of Obama over [Republican candidate John] McCain is positive," Haji Babai said.
"Obama has promised change and this is both an opportunity and test for the United States," he added.
"We are waiting for that change.
"In the past eight years, [President George W.] Bush had created a bad atmosphere against the United States in the world with his militarism and this financial crisis," said Haji Babai.
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