In a message to mark the Nowruz new year festival on Sunday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the West was behind violent protests that rocked the country following the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last June.
His message came a day after U.S. President Barack Obama sent a new year’s video message to Iranians saying the offer of dialogue still stood.
Khamenei, however, said that the United States could not “talk about peace and friendship and at the same time plot and plan sedition.”
“The enemies wanted to divide the people and to create a civil war, but the nation was alert,” said Khamenei.
The supreme leader said that U.S. offers of a “fresh start” with Iran in Obama’s first Nowruz address last year, had come to nothing.
“The U.S. government and the new administration claimed they wanted to have fair and correct relations, wrote letters, and sent messages and even shouted through loudspeakers ‘We want to normalize relations with the Islamic republic,’ but unfortunately in practice they did the opposite,” said Khamenei.
“Eight months after the elections, they took the worst possible stance,” he added. “The president called those rioters and saboteurs ‘civil rights activists’.”
Washington has criticized the Islamic republic over its treatment of those demonstrating against the re-election of Ahmadinejad.
Khamenei’s address from the northeastern city of Mashhad was broadcast on state TV. Pro-government supporters at the rally chanted “Death to Obama.”
Obama’s video message on Saturday, released by the White House, was directed at the Iranian populace rather than its leaders.
“Even as we continue to have differences with the Iranian government, we will sustain our commitment to a more hopeful future for the Iranian people,” he said.
“Over the course of the last year, it is the Iranian government that has chosen to isolate itself, and choose a self-defeating focus on the past over a commitment to build a better future.”
The United States is currently pursuing a fourth round of sanctions against Iran over what it sees as the regime’s refusal to abandon a nuclear weapons program. Iran denies the accusation.
In a message, also broadcast on Sunday, Ahmadinejad sent a barely veiled warning to Western leaders.
“The Iranian nation will guard its national security with full strength and will decisively cut any unclean hand from any part of the globe which tries to harm it,” Ahmadinejad said in a message broadcast on state television.
The hard-liner also added that his re-election in June last year was a “true” example of democracy for the world.
“The decisive vote by the nation for the president clearly outlined what path the government should take,” said Ahmadinejad.
“The enemy tried to hide the success of the Iranian people with dust, but in reality they were rubbing their own faces with dust. They should know that the Iranian nation is more determined than last year to pursue its high goals.”
