Iran's Leaders Divided on U.S.

"We want more Iranians visiting the United States. . . . We are determined to reach out to the Iranian people," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters, hinting at the proposal. At present, Iranians have to travel to Turkey or Dubai to apply for U.S. visas.

For decades, calls in Iran for establishing ties were often answered by angry protests on the streets of Tehran denouncing the idea as a betrayal of the Islamic revolution.

But in 2006, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say in matters related to U.S.-Iranian relations, lifted the ban on direct negotiations by allowing Iranian diplomats to talk to their American counterparts in Iraq. The purpose was "to make America understand that they have to leave Iraq alone and allow the Iraqis to govern their own country," Khamenei said.

Samareh Hashemi's cautionary words in the interview are in line with the policies outlined by Khamenei, who said in January that restoring relations under current circumstances would endanger Iran's security, because it would "provide opportunity for security agents to come and go, as well as for espionage."

"Iranian-American relations have become one-dimensional," said Abdi, the former hostage-taker, who writes columns and publishes a blog. "Whatever both countries demand from each other, practically no measures for rapprochement are really viable.

"The United States has a certain view of the world, and Iran opposes this view. So there will be conflicts as long as this is the case."

Interests sections, housed in the embassies of third countries, are a device of international relations by which hostile countries communicate even though they have no formal diplomatic ties.

Iran has an interests section, employing 30 to 40 diplomats, that operates under the umbrella of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, according to Kharrazi, the former envoy to France.

The United States, meanwhile, is represented in Tehran by an interests section in the Swiss Embassy, where about 20 non-Americans and local staff members handle U.S. interests in Iran, Iranian staff members working there say.

Samareh Hashemi said that if progress is to occur, "the U.S. must first reform, and then we will see what happens." He said he was not afraid of military strikes on Iran. "The forces of any government which would attack Iran will no longer have any security in our region or anywhere else," Samareh Hashemi said. "They will no longer be safe, wherever they are."

He accused the United States of training the 12 Iranians arrested in May in connection with a bombing at a religious center in the Iranian city of Shiraz that killed 12.

"During unrest near Orumieh in northwestern Iran, we have found American instruments," Samareh Hashemi said, adding that evidence will be provided soon.