Sender: the President of the Usa

According to certain Iranian sources of Il Foglio, the White House's direct diplomacy with Teheran was not cut off last June. On the eve of the commemoration, President Barack Obama apparently sent the latest in a series of messages to Ayatollah Khamenei.
Female Journalist Masih Alinejad assumed as much in her open letter to the White House: Mr President – writes Alinejad – Even if you are not on our side, at least please don't side with them. For the second time in five months you have chosen to come down on the side of the Revolutionary Guards, the Basiji and those conservative elements which stole the votes of the Iranian electors. On November 4th you wrote to Ayatollah Khamenei. This letter – which was kept secret – encouraged the security apparatus controlled by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to repress the anti-government forces with even greater brutality”.

Before throwing himself into the Presidential election campaign Obama had said himself that direct talks with Iran weren't a taboo; and after the election his advisors set about making them happen. The “Outstretched Hand” policy had a notable success in March with his speech to time with Nooruz – the traditional Iranian New Year – and was further extended for the talks in Geneva regarding Iran's nuclear programme.
Between March and October (of this year) there was a first exchange of letters between Washington and Teheran; according to the Washington Times, in May Barack Obama write to the Ayatollah Khamenei.

The Democratic Administration issued no denials and the spokesperson of the White House conceded: “We have been demonstrating for some time that  there exists a desire for dialogue and we have been trying to communicate with the Iranians in a number of different ways”. Teheran has not only admitted to have received this letter, but has also given to understand that it has received the other as well.
On November 4th the Supreme Leader confirmed “the new American president has sent us many different messages suggesting that we should turn over a new page, and begin to cooperate”. On other occasions Iranian officials have confirmed the existence of at least two letters from Obama addressed to Khamenei, but the letters in question – either one or two – seemed to date back to before the Iranian elections, as well as the demonstrations and the massive crackdown that followed them.

The American State Department is neither confirmed nor denied this fact, The news appeared a couple of  weeks ago on the website “Planet Iran” and the Iranian activist Banafsheh  Zand Bonazzi has confirmed that fact to Il Foglio.
Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council , a controversial body which supports dialogue between the two sides, has told il Foglio that it is “ a very interesting and absolutely plausible development.” According to Parsi, the period of reluctance to maintain open channels of dialogue with Khamenei due to the post electoral violence came to an end with the beginning of the Geneva negotiations process. But then that more optimistic stance also came to a rapid end with the news from Iran of the proposed setting up of another ten nuclear power plants in order to continue Teheran's  uranium enrichment programme as part of its wider atomic policy.

Read the Italian version