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Iran FM urges Obama to choose "right path" towards Tehran

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-01-21 11:40

TEHRAN -- Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has expressed hope that the new US President Barack Obama could choose the right path towards Tehran, local newspaper Iran Daily reported Tuesday on its website.

The United States had no correct approach towards Iran and always was the "troublemaker," Mottaki was quoted by ISNA news agency as saying, according to the Iran Daily report.

"But if Obama chooses the right path, compensates the past, ends hostility and hegemony, and revises past political mistakes, we would have no hostility," Mottaki said on the eve of Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States.

"We hope that angles of optimism would be created (with Obama) but the facts tell us we should not be optimistic," the Iranian foreign minister added.

Obama was sworn in on Tuesday as the 44th president of the United States on the west front of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., becoming the first black president in the country's history.

Obama said earlier this month that Iran would be one of the biggest challenges that his administration was to face, but Washington must be "willing to initiate diplomacy" with the country.

The United States, which designated Iran as the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism," has been accusing Iran of developing secretly nuclear weapons under the cover of civil nuclear program. Iran denies the charges.