(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Most people in Iran want their government to hold official and direct talks with the United States, according to a poll by Terror Free Tomorrow. 61.3 per cent of respondents favour the start of unconditional negotiations between Iran and the U.S.

After being branded as part of an "axis of evil" by U.S. president George W. Bush in January 2002, Iran has contended that its nuclear program aims to produce energy, not weapons. In June 2005, former Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won Iran’s presidential election in a run-off over Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani with 61.6 per cent of all cast ballots.

In December 2006 and March 2007, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) imposed sanctions against Iran after it failed to stop uranium enrichment—a process needed both to make nuclear weapons and produce electricity.

In October 2007, Bush announced a new set of unilateral sanctions against Iran, which include the designations of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "proliferator of weapons of mass destruction" and of the elite Quds Force as a "supporter of terrorism." The resolution has significant economic implications for Iran.

Last December, a summary of the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) found with "high confidence" that Iran stopped an effort to develop nuclear arms in the fall of 2003. Ahmadinejad called this statement "a victory", adding, "The report said clearly that the Iranian people were on the right course. Today, Iran has turned to a nuclear country, and all world countries have accepted this fact."

On Mar. 11, senior U.S. Council on Foreign Relations official Vali Nasr said Washington has unintentionally boosted Iran’s influence in regional affairs by toppling Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in Afghanistan, saying, "The removal of these two regimes without powerful successor states benefited Iran greatly, and opened elbow room for Iran to spread its influence."

Polling Data

Do you favour or oppose full, unconditional negotiations between the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the government of the United States?

Source: Terror Free Tomorrow
Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with 1,001 Iranian adults, conducted from Feb. 15 to Feb. 24, 2008. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

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