As sanctions loom, is Iran sending peace signals to the US?
Beyond the usual anti-American rhetoric, some analysts say that Iran is trying to avoid sanctions and resolve tensions with Washington over its nuclear program.
Iranian President Ahmadinejad, speaks at a public gathering in the city of Kerman, southeast of the capital Tehran, Iran, Wednesday. Ahmadinejad urged Barack Obama to accept a nuclear fuel swap deal, he said, 'if they (the US and its allies) are truthful when they say they seek cooperation…they should accept this offer.'
Hamed Malekpour/Fars News Agency/AP
Istanbul, Turkey
Iran’s triumphant anti-American rhetoric may have hardly changed.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei declared on Monday that countries around the world “thirst” for Iran’s message of “values, humanity and deliverance of nations from the grip of domineering powers.”
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently announced, “Iran is the world’s most powerful country, and they [Western powers] themselves admit this.” He routinely proclaims that the US, West, and its capitalist ways have “collapsed.”
But behind the usual high-pitched pokes from Tehran, analysts say several Iranian actions signal a serious desire to resolve the nuclear standoff – and perhaps even to find a limited rapprochement with arch-enemy America.
The Iranian olive branches, they cite:
- Iran's acceptance of a nuclear fuel swap deal.
- Allowing the visit by mothers of three American hikers imprisoned in Iran.
- Mr. Ahmadinejad's visit to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) talks this month.
Are those Iranian signals real? And is the United States listening?
Amid the current US push for more UN sanctions, Washington may not perceive these as significant efforts by Iran.
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