A senior Iranian official has slammed President Barack Obama offer of engagement with Tehran, the Ilna news agency reported on Wednesday.

Mojtaba Samareh, a senior aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said that U.S. policies during the Obama administration were sometimes worse than "the dark era of George W. Bush."

He said the United States was increasing the number of its forces in Afghanistan and Iraq and was "behind the massacre of people and the expansion of poverty in these countries."

Samareh said Tehran expected Obama to "rectify the dark Bush-era policies toward the Iranian nuclear program and give up confronting the Iranian nation."

In a message released on Saturday to mark the Iranian New Year, Obama said: "We are working with the international community to hold the Iranian government accountable because they refuse to live up to their international obligations... But our offer of comprehensive diplomatic contacts and dialogue stands."

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian parliamentary Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, also dismissed Obama''s offer.

"Those comments were nothing but a deception," he said. "Obama has lost his prestige in the eyes of the world and so his New Year message has no value."