By IRNA,
Berlin : Iran will become the top priority for the administration of US president-elect Barack Obama, said a prominent US Mideast scholar in Berlin Tuesday evening.
“I think Iran will be the number one priority for the Obama administration,” said J. Scott Carpenter of the Washington Institute in his speech to the German Council of Foreign Relations.
“The Obama administration wants to engage in Iran and wants to be seen as being engaged in Iran,” added the former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.
Carpenter stressed Obama is ready to negotiate with Iran “without preconditions and without illusions.”
He pointed also to the possibility of a “big carrot” US offer for Iran.
Carpenter who served also as the coordinator for the State Department’s Broader Middle East and the North Africa Initiatives in 2006, said it was likely that Obama would appoint a “mega envoy” on the Middle East, dealing with the Syrian and Iranian rapprochement process.