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12 May 2003

State Department Launches Persian Language Website

(New site will provide information about the U.S. to Iranians) (370)
The State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs
has added Persian to the websites it maintains in other world
languages -- Russian, Arabic, Chinese, French, and Spanish. The
Persian site, at http://persian.usinfo.state.gov, will provide
information about the United States to Iranians in their own language.
Launched on May 12, the State Department's Persian site has been in
development for nearly a year. The following message, from Secretary
of State Colin Powell to the Iranian people, was posted on the site:
(begin text)
Message from Secretary of State Colin Powell
To the People of Iran:
I welcome you to the new Persian-language website of the United States
Department of State. We are pleased to add Persian to the other
websites we maintain in Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Spanish and French.
We hope you will find this site to be a useful source of information
about the United States and about U.S. policy toward Iran.
Our differences are not with the Iranian people. Instead, it is the
Iranian government's decisions to support terrorism, to pursue weapons
of mass destruction, and to deny human rights to the people of Iran
that are the obstacles to improved relations between our two
countries.
At the core of U.S. policy is the conviction that people everywhere
should enjoy freedom. The United States wants to see a democratic and
prosperous Iran, integrated into the global economy. I look forward to
the day that Iran takes its rightful place in the family of nations.
Our two cultures have so much to offer each other.
Images of Iranians participating in spontaneous candlelight vigils in
memory of the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in
the U.S. touched us deeply. As President Bush has made clear, "There
is a long history of friendship between the American people and the
people of Iran. As Iran's people move toward a future defined by
greater freedom, greater tolerance, they will have no better friend
than the United States of America."
I hope you will look upon this website as a gesture of that
friendship.
Colin L. Powell
(end text)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)