Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (ruled 2005 to 2013) has written outgoing US President Barack Obama that he still has time to “restore people’s rights” to the tune of $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets, Tasnim reported.
The Ahmadinejad letter was delivered to the White House through the Swiss embassy in Tehran, and posted by the website Dolatebahar.com, which is affiliated with Ahmadinejad.
After the traditional Islamic greeting of “As-salamun alaykum,” Ahmadinejad writes: “You took office as the president of the United States amidst a climax in global frustration… following several decades of hegemonic policies and behavior of consecutive US administrations. … Your campaign slogan was ‘change’ and you claimed to be determined to change those policies as well as behaviors.”
Ahmadinejad then describes the years of “oppression and cruelty by different American governments” against Iran, which merely held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, after taking over the US embassy in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad expresses his disappointment in Obama, who promised to restore ties with Iran, but has not, “and the same hostile policies along with the same trend of enmity were pursued, in alternative ways,” he complains, noting that Iran never received its much deserved “compensation for the past” during Obama’s term in office.
Now, here is what Ahmadinejad believes Obama should do to wipe the slate clean with the suffering Iranian people: last April, the US Supreme Court ruled that Iranian assets worth $2 billion be paid to the American families of victims killed in Iran’s military attacks in Beirut (1983) and Saudi Arabia (1996). But Ahmadinejad insists the ruling had been “based on unfounded claims without presenting any reliable documents, issued a sentence based on which about two billion Dollars of the Iranian nation’s assets would be seized unlawfully.”
“It is the clear expectation of the Iranian nation that the particular case of property seizure . . . be quickly fixed by your excellency and that not only the Iranian nation’s rights be restored and the seized property released and returned, but also the damage caused be fully compensated for,” says Ahmadinejad, concluding, “I passionately advise you not to let the historical defamation and bitter incident be recorded under your name.”