KHAMENEH'I RULES OUT TALKING TO WASHINGTON
TEHRAN 18 Mar. (IPS) The leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ali
Khameneh'i reiterated Monday his total opposition to talks with the United
States, saying negotiations with Washington does not solve any difficulty".
Speaking to the Iranian officials on the start of the mourning days special to the Shi’a Muslims as well as the Iranian New Year that starts on 21 March, Mr. Khameneh’i said though one cannot say for sure that the United States would attack Iran yet one has to be ready and take American threats seriously.
Observers said though expected, yet the leader’s Monday statement not only stops all internal debate concerning relations with Washington, but also rules out any possible improvement in the foreseeable future.
Ayatollah Khameneh'i rejected dialogue with the United States one day after a government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh had said that the government was not opposed to meetings and talks between Iranian and American lawmakers, referring to a proposal made last week by the US senator Joseph Biden to meet with Iranian counterparts.
"Negotiations are not a solution. It wont remove any problem and all those who, when menaced, think about dialogue, in fact shows their own weakness and servility, that is very negative", the staunchly anti-American Khameneh'i told officials, including military commanders and high-ranking clerics, among them Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami, the President.
But he did not explain how one could solve problems and overcome difficulties without negotiations.
He warned his American counterpart George W. Bush not to mistake Iran with the now defeated Afghan Taleban. "Though no one here welcomes war and consider a duty to avoid it, yet, in case the enemy declare war, we shall defend ourselves with all our forces and capacities, considering it a national and religious duty", Mr. Khameneh'i pointed out.
"The eyes of the next generations are fixed on the Iranian people, alert and capable of creating epics", he said.
His comments came after both the government and most reformist lawmakers and politicians welcomes Senator Biden’s proposal.
"The United States is against Islam and the very nature and essence of the Islamic Republic and has times and again expressed its opposition to theocratic regimes. Whatever it does, it is a tactical move aimed at luring and deceiving. Therefore, and based on these facts, talking with the Americans is futile, meaningless", he added.
"President Bush tells us to return to the international community. But does he not knows that we have good relations with all countries and it is America that, because of its hegemony policy, is isolated", he said, in reference to European Union’s backing of Iran.
President George W. Bush angered the Iranians when, in his State of the Union address to the Congress on 29 January, had labelled Iran, Iraq and North Korea as forming an "axis of evil".
The remark came after Ayatollah Khameneh'i had denounced American military intervention in Afghanistan and used strong words against the American president, whom, in the words of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the regime’s number 2 men, has "a brain of swallow into the body of a dinosaur". ENDS KHAMENEH'I US TALKS 18302