TEHRAN - A prominent member of Iran's parliament dismissed on Wednesday President Barack Obama's "new year" appeal for dialogue with the Islamic republic, a message that no official has yet responded to directly. Obama said in an address on Saturday that he still sought a historic dialogue with Iran, which Washington suspects is seeking nuclear weapons through its energy programme. "Those comments were nothing but a deception," Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, said on comments on news agency ILNA. "They (Americans) have sent several messages during the last year calling for talks with Iran, but at the same time passed more than 60 anti-Iranian bills in their Congress," he said. "As long as there is no sense of balance between their comments and actions, offering talks could be only a trick ... Obama has lost his prestige among the world's public opinion, therefore his new year message has no value." Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made no reference to the appeal in two new year speeches, but suggested Washington had proved that its talk of normalizing relations over the past year was a bluff since US policies on Iran had not changed. The US administration hopes to win agreement for a new round of UN sanctions on Iran over its failure to reach an agreement with US allies on uranium enrichment outside Iran. Tehran says it only seeks to generate electricity.
