Polls shows Iranians still wary of U.S.

WASHINGTON — Few Iranians have favorable opinions of the United States, a view that has changed little since the election of an American president who has expressed a willingness to talk to Iran, a rare poll of Iranian citizens showed Monday.

Just 29 percent of Iranians said they have favorable views of the United States in the latest poll, which was conducted last month. In a similar survey in February 2008 — nearly a year before Barack Obama became president — 34 percent had positive opinions about the U.S.

In a further sign of wariness toward the United States, 38 percent in last month's poll said the U.S. is the greatest threat to Iran. Only Israel was ranked higher — 44 percent of Iranians said the Jewish state posed the greatest threat to their country.

The poll was conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow, a bipartisan group that tries to undermine support for terrorism, and for the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public-policy institute. Both are based in Washington.

The latest survey was released days before Friday's national elections in Iran, in which hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being pressed by his main challenger, reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi.

The poll shows 87 percent of Iranians favor free elections as a long-term goal for Iran, up 5 percentage points from a year ago. Another 84 percent want a free press to be a long-term goal, up 6 percentage points.

Sixty percent said they favor unconditional talks with the United States, virtually unchanged from last year.

The two countries have not had diplomatic relations since 1979, when radicals seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held American hostages for 444 days. They now are at odds over Iran's nuclear program.

The survey by KA Europe SPRL involved a random sample of 1,001 adult Iranians from May 11-20. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.