Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared that a new policy of openness proposed by Hassan Rouhani, the new reformist president, could bring positive benefits for Iran.
He said he believed in "heroic flexibility" as he endorsed "rational foreign policy".
Mr Rouhani has approved talks between Mohamad Zarif, the US-educated foreign minister, and William Hague, his British counterpart, in New York. There is also growing speculation that a ground-breaking encounter with US diplomats is on the cards.
A raft of positive statements from Iran about opening up to the West in recent days however prompted a warning from Israel that any new talks should stick to the principle that Iran should give up its attempts to enrich uranium and close suspect facilities.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said he would meet President Barack Obama at the same New York meeting at the end of the month and demand the US not take the threat of military intervention off the table in return for talks. He said the West must stick to the basic demands that Iran stop all uranium enrichment, export all enriched uranium from the country, close its underground nuclear facility in Qom and halt construction of a plutonium reactor. » | Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent | Tuesday, September 17, 2013
