Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says only the appearance of US new Middle East policy differs from Washington’s previous approaches.
The change might have been believable for people if the US had admitted its mistakes and attempted to correct its wrong policies, Mehmanparast said on Sunday in reference to US President Barack Obama’s speech on Thursday. Mehmanparast added that reviewing the US new policies, however, did not reveal any change compared to the past. In a televised speech about Middle East developments on May 19, US President Barack Obama talked about marking a “new chapter in American diplomacy.” “For six months, we have witnessed an extraordinary change take place in the Middle East and North Africa… I would like to talk about this change, and how we can respond in a way that advances our values and strengthens our security,” Obama said. “Israel’s interests in the region are the most important thing Americans are worried about,” the Iranian official said. “They have felt that Israel’s interests have been threatened by the Islamic Awakening and popular movements especially in Egypt and Middle East countries,” Mehmanparast added. The Iranian official said the US was trying to preserve Israel’s interests at any cost, therefore they talked about resolving Palestine-Israel conflict. In his speech Obama said that any solution would require Israel to go back to the borders drawn before the 1967 war. His remarks however, drew criticism from Israeli officials and on Friday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly rejected any notion of Israel even considering a withdrawal from territories it seized in 1967.
