Iran has no immediate plans for normalization of relations with US

"Given continuation of hostile policies of the United States against Iran, we have no plans for normalization of relations with America. This issue is not in our agenda," Foreign Ministry spokesman says.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
us iran 298 ap (photo credit: AP [file])
us iran 298 ap
(photo credit: AP [file])
Iran has no immediate plans to normalize relations with the United States of America, Iran's Foreign Ministry said Sunday. "Given continuation of hostile policies of the United States against Iran, we have no plans for normalization of relations with America. This issue is not in our agenda," Foreign Ministry spokesmanMohammad Ali Hosseini told a press conference. Hosseini's comment was apparently intended to clarify remarks by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who said on Thursday that he was willing to restore diplomatic relations with the United States but doing so now would make Iran more vulnerable to US espionage. Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, said Iran never said the severed relations were forever and that he would be the the "first one to support" resumption of diplomatic ties with Washington but he believed doing so now would be "harmful" to Iran's interests. The United States cut diplomatic ties with Iran shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution when militant students seized the US Embassy in Tehran and published sensitive documents they found inside documenting American intelligence-gathering in the country. The embassy, labeled the "Den of Spies," is occasionally open to public as a museum documenting American misdeeds in Iran and the region. The Swiss Embassy in Teheran looks after US interests in Iran, while the Iranians have an interest section in Pakistan's embassy in Washington. Iran last year claimed it had uncovered spy rings organized by the US and its Western allies and detained four Iranian-Americans, who were later released. The United States is at odds with Teheran over Iran's nuclear program, accusing Teheran of seeking to build nuclear weapons. Tehran has denied the charges saying its nuclear program is merely to generate some 20,000 megawatts of electricity in the next two decades, not to create bombs. The dispute over Iran's nuclear program and US allegations of Iranian support for armed groups in Iraq have further raised tensions. Washington has said it was willing to hold talks with Iran over the issue of diplomatic ties only after Iran halts uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to produce nuclear fuel for reactors producing electricity or build atomic weapons. But the two countries have held three rounds of ambassador-level negotiations on security in Iraq, breaking the 28-year diplomatic freeze. Hosseini said Iran was not opposed to a new round of talks with the US over Iraq's security. "We have no objection to a future round of talks. We have conveyed our views to the Iraqi side and are waiting for a response," he said. Washington's push for a third round of UN sanctions against Iran was undermined by the release of a new US intelligence report in December, saying that Tehran stoped its alleged nuclear weapons program under international pressure in 2003.