Us-iran Relations, Foreign Policy | featured news

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated Sunday his desire to engage in direct talks with the U.S., on one condition. “Take your guns out of the face of the Iranian nation and I myself will negotiate with you,” he said at an event attended by tens of thousands of Iranians in Tehran’s Azadi Square.

Iran followed the United States on Sunday in denying that the two countries had scheduled direct bilateral negotiations on Iran's controversial nuclear program. The New York Times, quoting unnamed U.S. administration officials, had said on Saturday that secret exchanges between U.S. and Iranian officials had yielded agreement "in principle" to hold one-on-one talks.

Obama blasted allegations of some in the Iranian government that the United States is "instigating protests" as "patently false and absurd." The accusations "are an obvious attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within Iran's borders," Obama said.

Iran's most powerful figure today dismissed President Obama's extraordinary Persian New Year gesture, insisting that the U.S. administration's actions must match its rhetoric before Iran would alter its foreign policy stances.