Iran expressed a hope that Barack Obama will “choose the right path” toward Iran, ISNA news agency reported Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that the US had no correct approach towards Iran and always been the “troublemaker.”

“But if Obama chose the right path, compensated the past, lifted hostility and [US] hegemony, and revised the previous political mistakes, we would have no hostility,” Mottaki said.

Iran and the US have been engaged in a protracted face-off over the former’s supposed nuclear weapons programme, an issue unresolved by the end of George W Bush’s presidency.

“We hope that angles of optimism would be created [with Obama] but the facts tell us we should not be optimistic,” Mottaki added.

The United States’ firmest ally in the region, Israel, was suitably enthusiastic about the new resident of the White House.

Israeli President Shimon Peres said that the inauguration of Obama is a “great day” for the United States because his “most unusual hope and election, only ten years ago, would have been unimaginable,” Israeli President Shimon Peres said Tuesday.

“What made history ugly, unmistakably, was basically slavery and there were two sorts of slavery: men upon women and white upon black,” Peres said.