TEHRAN — Iran has denied a report that its supreme leader wrote a letter to US President Barack Obama, Tehran's official news agency reported, as the country negotiates with world powers over its contested nuclear program. The IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham as saying the report Saturday by the Wall Street Journal was “an unprofessional media game.”
“The US president has a record of sending letters and in some cases Iran responded to his letters,” Afkham said Sunday. Neither she nor the IRNA report elaborated on her comments, though Afkham said Iran had no immediate plans to write Obama again. The Wall Street Journal report said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote Obama in recent weeks in response to a letter by the US president asking Iran to work with an American-led coalition fighting the self-proclaimed Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. The report said Khamenei outlined a series of abuses he said the US committed against Iran in the last 60 years. However, the report also quoted an unnamed former Obama administration official suggesting it could signal a potential breakthrough in relations between the two countries, who have viewed each other with mutual suspicion since the 1979 revolution toppled the US-backed Shah.
In November, Iran said it had written back in response to letters sent by Obama, the first acknowledgement in Tehran of such correspondence. However, it was not clear whether Khamenei wrote the letters himself. – AP Iran denies Khamenei wrote to Obama
TEHRAN — Iran has denied a report that its supreme leader wrote a letter to US President Barack Obama, Tehran's official news agency reported, as the country negotiates with world powers over its contested nuclear program.
The IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham as saying the report Saturday by the Wall Street Journal was “an unprofessional media game.”
“The US president has a record of sending letters and in some cases Iran responded to his letters,” Afkham said Sunday. Neither she nor the IRNA report elaborated on her comments, though Afkham said Iran had no immediate plans to write Obama again.
The Wall Street Journal report said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote Obama in recent weeks in response to a letter by the US president asking Iran to work with an American-led coalition fighting the self-proclaimed Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. The report said Khamenei outlined a series of abuses he said the US committed against Iran in the last 60 years. However, the report also quoted an unnamed former Obama administration official suggesting it could signal a potential breakthrough in relations between the two countries, who have viewed each other with mutual suspicion since the 1979 revolution toppled the US-backed Shah.
In November, Iran said it had written back in response to letters sent by Obama, the first acknowledgement in Tehran of such correspondence. However, it was not clear whether Khamenei wrote the letters himself. – AP
