Iran hopes Obama changes US policy
Islamic Republic's official news agency quotes government spokesman as saying Tehran hopes US president-elect avoids invading foreign countries
Thursday's report quotes government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham as saying Iran hopes Obama changes America's international image and avoids invading foreign countries.
Elham said the heavy costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were Bush's only legacy. The report said his comments were made late Wednesday.
Also Wednesday, an advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Obama to "replace Bush's war-mongering approach with a pacifist way and base US foreign policy on friendship, justice and human cooperation."
Ali Akbar Javanfekr, who is Ahmadinejad's press advisor, was quoted as telling the state-run al-Alam satellite news channel on Wednesday that "the US government needs to drastically reduce its expenses because of a worsened economic situation, and the withdrawal of US forces from the Middle East would considerably help in this regard."
He continued to say that "(Obama's) slogan was change. We too believe that change is an inevitable requirement."
As for the possibility of opening an American diplomatic "interests section" at the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, Javanfekr said Iran has yet to receive any no official request in this regard.
"There is no change in the relations between the US and Iran," he said, "for this to happen there needs to be a change in America's foreign policy."
Dudi Cohen contributed to this report
