Iran to Obama: Let's Talk

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that he’d welcome talks with the US, if Barack Obama’s overtures are sincere, the AP reports. “The Iranian nation welcomes a hand extended to it should it really and truly be based on honesty, justice and respect,” the Iranian president said in a radio address today, referencing Obama’s offer to “extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

But Ahmandinejad warned that “if, God forbid, the extended hand has an honest appearance but contains no honesty in content, it will meet the same response the Iranian nation gave to Mr. Bush.” Last month, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rebuffed Obama's video message on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian new year, in which the president reached out to the Iranian people. Khamenei said Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in US policy. (More Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stories.)