President Barack Obama made an unprecedented video appeal to the Iranian people today, offering a “new beginning” of engagement to end nearly 30 years of animosity between the two nations. Video is also on YouTube here.

Barack Obama’s Nowruz (the Iranian new year) message is the latest chapter in a presidential charm offensive that has so far been conducted at arms length and has barely touched on several key disputes.

In the video, which was shown on a number of TV networks in the Middle East, Obama said he wanted to “speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” to make clear his desire to establish “constructive ties” between the two countries.

“My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us,” the president said. Strikingly, though, he mentioned none of them: not Iran’s nuclear programme, its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, nor its profound hostility to Israel.

The timing and format of the TV broadcast, with Farsi subtitles, emphasised its broad appeal – to an entire country at a time of traditional celebration rather than solely to a government whose internal complexities compound the difficulty for US policymakers.

“For nearly three decades relations between our nations have been strained,” Obama reminded his audience. “But at this holiday we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together.”

The message for Iran’s leaders at this “season of new beginnings” was a reprise of the approach he signalled in his inaugural address: commitment to engagement – and in an emollient tone that again contrasted sharply with that of George Bush, who included the Islamic Republic in his “axis of evil”.

“This process will not be advanced by threats,” the president said, hinting perhaps that Americans as well as Iranians needed to take that lesson on board. “We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”

Despite avoiding the tangled nuclear dossier – specifically Iran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment – Obama did warn that “terror and arms” did not sit well with the “real responsibilities” that went with Iran’s “rightful place in the community of nations”.

The White House and state ­department are looking at a range of other ways to reach out to Tehran. It has been invited to an international conference on Afghanistan later this month and the US wants to see it co-operate as US forces prepare to leave Iraq.

Another idea is that the president write an open letter to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. US officials want to avoid doing anything that might boost the chances of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the populist hardliner who is standing for re-election in June.

Reopening a US interests section in Tehran – scene of the notorious hostage-taking drama at the old US embassy during the 1979 revolution – is reportedly another possibility.

Iranian reactions to the message were predictably cautious. Akbar Javankir, an adviser to Ahmadinejad, said Iran could not forget “the previous hostile and aggressive attitude of the United States.”

The US administration “has to ­recognise past mistakes and repair them.”

That includes decades of American support for the shah. As Obama pointed out, with presidential understatement, it will not be easy to overcome what he called “the old divisions.”

An excellent idea of what the trip is like and what the mission is all about.

it is called Listen to Iran’s People: A Call for Peace