Iran's minister says Americans obviously want change
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister said on Thursday that U.S. voters clearly want change in their government, which has worked to isolate Tehran over its nuclear program.
Encountering reporters at an international conference on Iraq, Manouchehr Mottaki refused to say exactly what he thought of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's expressed willingness to consider a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Instead, Mottaki noted with satisfaction that "everybody (in the United States) is looking for changes" in Washington, where the Bush administration has worked to isolate Iran in recent years.
"We try not to take part, before the final result of the election of the United States," the foreign minister said, speaking in English in a hallway at the conference in Stockholm.
"We do not consider from the different candidates, what they say," Mottaki said. Instead Tehran examined "the policies of the United States toward our region in general and toward in Iran in particular."
The Bush administration has lead international efforts to sanction Iran over its nuclear program. The administration accuses Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and says it could consider using military force to stop it. Iran says its nuclear program is for producing electricity.
With the presidential election coming up in November, White House hopefuls Obama and Republican John McCain have sparred over whether U.S. presidents should carry on with similar policies and in particular whether they should meet with adversaries like Iran's leadership.
Obama has called for greater engagement with U.S. foes such as Iran, although he has qualified that recently by saying he would not guarantee a meeting with Ahmadinejad.
McCain has derided Obama's foreign-policy approach as naive.
Mottaki observed that in any case the U.S. foreign policy debate clearly would affect the election.
"For the second time, the United States election is affected strongly through its foreign policy," he said, without saying when he considered to be the first. "That's why all the candidates are trying to say something new to public opinion."
(Editing by Charles Dick)
