A day after President Barack Obama struck a conciliatory tone toward Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged Washington on Wednesday to apologize for its actions toward his country for the past 60 years and said it was unclear whether the new American administration was merely shifting tactics or wanted real change.

But, in a speech in the western city of Kermanshah, he did not explicitly rebuff the American president’s gesture. “We are waiting patiently,” he said, referring to the policies of the new administration in Washington. “We will listen to the statements closely, we will carefully study their actions and if there are real changes, we will welcome it.”

Mr. Obama, in his first television interview at the White House since taking office, said that it was important to be willing to talk to the Iranians, both to express differences and to explore “where there are potential avenues for progress.”

“And as I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us,” Mr. Obama said in the interview with Al Arabiya television that was broadcast on Tuesday.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also said Tuesday that Iran had a “clear opportunity” to engage with the international community.

Mr. Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that the “slogan of change was good, but it could be of two kinds — a fundamental change or a tactical one,” the official IRNA news agency said. It would soon become clear, IRNA quoted the Iranian leader as saying, whether Mr. Obama’s comments were “just a change in tone.”

“Change means that they should apologize to the Iranian nation and try to make up for their dark background and the crimes they have committed against the Iranian nation,” he said in the speech broadcast live on Iranian television.

The catalog of crimes, Mr. Ahmadinejad said, stretched back 60 years, beginning with American support for the 1953 coup that ousted the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh and installed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who ruled until he was ousted in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The list included the downing of an Iran Air Airbus A300, which was shot down by the U.S. Navy’s missile cruiser Vincennes over the Persian Gulf in 1988, killing 290. American military commanders said at the time that the passenger plane had been mistaken for an F-14 fighter jet, and defended the warship’s actions. America’s efforts to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions were also listed.

Mr. Ahmadinejad also questioned the United States deployment of forces in many places around the world, apparently demanding that the forces be withdrawn. “Who has asked them to come and interfere in the affairs of nations?” he asked, according to Reuters.

Funny… he speaks of things the neocons (R & D) dismiss as silly reasons for middle eastern hostility towards the United States. The reasons Ron Paul was belittled by the rest of the Republican presidential candidates.

I don’t suspect Obama’s policies will be much different from Bush’s. He most defininately won’t apologize for the crimes Ahmadinejad speaks of. Obama is of the same group who perpetrated them in the first place. He has no problem with the intervention. He just wants to make sure its intervention he likes. Such as increased sanctions on the people of Iran, bombing Pakistani children, the occupation of Palestine and the murdering of the people there, and increase in military action in Afghanistan. War is Peace.

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