TEHRAN: Iran’s former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a bitter opponent of serving President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, came out Tuesday in support of talks with Tehran’s arch foe Washington.

“I think today we can utterly negotiate on an equal footing and mutual respect with the United States,” Rafsanjani said in an interview with a specialized reformist website, irdiplomacy.ir.

Rafsanjani said Ahmadinejad had already “broken the taboo of negotiations with the United States” by “sending letters to American officials that remain unanswered,” referring to messages to President Barack Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush.

Rafsanjani, who was president from 1989 to 1997, is considered a relative moderate. Ahmadinejad defeated him in a 2005 presidential election.

He now heads the Expediency Council, a top political arbitration body and an advisory arm to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Rafsanjani added that he had tried during his time in office to initiate a dialogue with Washington, but he had been vetoed by Khamenei.

“In my time the Americans showed signs of wanting to soften their stance, but we responded coldly because we followed the policy of the leader [Khamenei], which did not favor” a normalization with the United States.