IRAN: No U-turns on nuclear policy in Tehran

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While the Bush administration appears to be making an eighth-inning adjustment to its Iran policy, there was little evidence of a gentler Iranian attitude toward the United States at prayers today.

The U.S. this week agreed to send an envoy to talks between European and Iranian negotiators over Iran’s nuclear program. Hints increased that the U.S. may be interested in setting up a diplomatic outpost in Iran beyond the tiny Swiss-run interests section it now maintains.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki today heartily welcomed such an expansion and repeated a call for more direct air flights between Tehran and the U.S.

All this comes as Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, heads off to Geneva for talks with European, Russian and Chinese counterparts.

But not all Iranians were so chummy.

At Iran’s 1,500th Friday prayer session since the once-outlawed sermons were resumed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami gave a typically fiery speech during which followers chanted slogans likening the U.S. to the Roman empire and punctuated the sermon with cries of ‘Death to America.’

Khatami, not to be confused with the liberal minded former president who shares the same last name, dismissed international concerns about Iran’s nuclear programs as ‘pretexts’ for pressuring Iran. ‘If not the nuclear issue, then human rights, and if there is no human rights case, they look for other pretexts, such animal rights,’ he said.

He said Western news outlets (‘the media of the arrogant powers,’ as he put it) had managed to convey Iran’s message that if attacked by the U.S. ‘our nation will give a lesson that our enemies never forget.’

He rejected the idea that there were moderates and hardliners in the Iranian leadership. ‘Far from it,’ he said. ‘The Supreme National Security Council is in charge of [the nuclear issue], and all officials and statesmen are in unison,’ he said.

Still, even a hard-line cleric such as Khatami welcomed negotiations with the U.S., so long as there were no preconditions and talks were used only as a tactical tool. ‘Negotiation is important for knowing the approach of the other side,’ he said.

— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran

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