Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks in the presence of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Guardian Council head Ahmed Janati, judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, president-elect Hassan Rohani and parliament speaker Ali Larijani during a meeting with officials at Khamenei’s office in Tehran yesterday.


AFP/Tehran


Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned yesterday that Washington was “not trustworthy”, after former US officials and lawmakers urged diplomacy with incoming president Hassan Rohani.
“I said at the beginning of the (Iranian) year that I am not optimistic about negotiations with the US, though in the past years I did not forbid negotiating (with them) about certain issues like Iraq,” he told top officials at an Iftar.
Khamenei said in March he was “not optimistic” over the prospects of direct talks with Washington on the sidelines of its nuclear negotiations with major powers.
“The Americans are ... not trustworthy and they are not honest in their encounters... The stance of American officials over past months once again confirms that one should not be optimistic,” he said at the Iftar, attended by centrist cleric Rohani and outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The comments from Khamenei, who has the final say in the regime’s macro policy issues, came less than a week after former US officials and dozens of American lawmakers called for President Barack Obama to pursue diplomacy with Rohani.
In a letter to Obama, the ex-policymakers said the election of Rohani, who takes office on August 3, “presents a major potential opportunity”.
“We strongly encourage your administration to seize the moment to pursue new multilateral and bilateral negotiations with Iran once Rohani takes office and to avoid any provocative action that could narrow the window of opportunity for a more moderate policy out of Tehran,” they wrote.
“In interacting with the world it’s a skill to continue your path without the other side being able to prevent you. If not you have lost,” Khamenei added, alluding to Iran’s future nuclear talks with world powers after Rohani, who once served as his country’s top nuclear negotiator, takes over from Ahmadinejad.