tehran, march 21: iran’s su- preme leader ayatollah ali khamenei said on saturday the islamic republic was ready to re- ciprocate if us president barack obama changed the american attitude towards his country. “if you change your attitude, we will change our attitude,” mr khamenei said in a ground- breaking address to thousands of iranians in the northeastern holy city of mashhad which was broadcast on state television. speaking a day after president obama offered tehran a “new beginning” to turn back the tide on decades of mutual animosity, mr khamenei — the final deci- sion maker on iranian strategic issues — said iran was yet to see any change in washington’s atti- tude towards tehran. “we have no experience with the new american government and the new american presi- dent. we will observe them and we will judge,” he said. “we cannot see any change. what is the change in your poli- cy? did you remove the sanc- tions? did you stop supporting the zionist regime? tell us what you have changed. we can’t see change even in the words of the new american president. change only in words is not enough. change must be real,” he said. “the american leaders and others must know that they can’t deceive our nation or scare it.” he accused washington of having had a “hostile” attitude towards tehran since the islamic revolution toppled the us- backed shah in 1979. “they sup- ported all the terrorist and oppo- nent groups” against iran, he said. “we can see the american hand behind these groups. un- fortunately, this support is still continuing,” he said, adding that us-backed groups were aiding rebels fighting iranian security forces along the iran-pakistan border. “the new american govern- ment wants to negotiate. they say to forget the past and are ex- tending their hand. but if it is an iron hand in a velvet glove, it won’t have a good meaning,” he said. highlighting the three-decade old animosity, mr khamenei said iran would not forget american support to saddam hussein dur- ing the 1980-88 war between iran and iraq or the shooting down of an iranian passenger plane in 1988 by a us warship that killed all 290 passengers on board. “in all these years, they car- ried out hostile propaganda against our country, especially in the past eight years,” the power- ful cleric said, referring to the tenure of george w. bush. mr khamenei noted that mr obama, in his message, had ac- cused iran of supporting terror- ism. “he congratulated iranians for the new year, but in the same speech he accused iranians of supporting terrorism and look- ing for nuclear weapons,” he said. “we don’t know who is taking decisions in the united states.. is it the president, or the congress, or somebody else? but we are acting logically and not emotion- ally.” mr khamenei also warned that if washington did not make changes in its policy towards tehran, it would be more disad- vantageous to it than to iran. “you put sanctions on our country for 30 years but it bene- fitted us and we became stron- ger. we actually thank the americans for that,” he said as the crowd chanted “death to america! death to israel! khamenei is the leader!”—afp