Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday that direct, comprehensive talks with the US were possible, but only if approved by the Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Salehi's remarks to the official IRNA news agency come in response to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Friday comments that the US would be willing to hold bilateral talks if Tehran were “ready to engage.” She also said that the US was prepared to take reciprocal confidence-building steps alongside “verifiable” moves by Iran.While repeatedly pointing to the Supreme Leader as the final arbiter of Iranian policy, Salehi noted the various issues on which the US and Iran already engaged in recent years, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and even the nuclear program in the context of the P5+1 group.
