May 14, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 11, 1424

TEHRAN, May 13: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned a thaw in relations with the United States would be tantamount to surrender, the state news agency IRNA reported Tuesday.

“Some are prescribing surrender to the US adventurers, but surrender to the enemy is no remedy,” Khamenei told thousands of students at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University on Monday.

His tough words came after US officials admitted to ongoing contacts between the two nations and, a week after, 153 MPs in the 290-seat Iranian parliament signed an open letter calling for normal relations between Iran and the outside world, including the United States.

“To go to the enemy is not the solution, since that would do nothing but to reinforce his morale, and make him more and more adventurous,” the powerful cleric said.

Khamenei, whose bloc of conservative clerics dominate the country, lashed out at Iranian reformists who wish to ease the country’s strict laws and social customs.

“To question the effectiveness of Iran’s system, as well as our values and revolutionary beliefs, serves the American interests”, Khamenei said.

“Unfortunately certain elements, consciously and unconsciously, are helping the enemy to create the conditions for a (US) military or partial-military action.”

Khamenei criticized the reformist lawmakers for calling to turn the “US threat” to “an opportunity” through restoring diplomatic ties, which were broken off 23 years ago in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

He warned: “The Americans know very well that any adventures in Iran will fail.”

He cautioned the US government not to mistake the simmering tensions between the country’s conservatives and reformists as the beginning of the end for the Islamic regime.

“Despite some dissatisfaction from certain parts of the government system, the people have trust in the officials and the young Iranians are ready to defend the country,” Khamenei said.

It was a pointed rejoinder as Washington unveiled Monday a new Farsi website aimed at attracting Iran’s millions of young people.

Following the downfall last month of Saddam Hussein, Iran finds itself surrounded by US troops to the west in Iraq and to the east in Afghanistan, raising fears Washington could meddle in Tehran.

At the very least, secret contacts between the two sides had probably gone on with the tacit approval of Khamenei’s conservative bloc until news of the contacts were brought to light by USA Today Monday.

The US daily quoted Iranian and US diplomatic sources as saying representatives of the two governments met secretly in Geneva three times this year, the last time on May 3.

Later Monday, a senior official accompanying US Secretary of State Colin Powell on a tour of Middle East and eastern Europe told reporters in Amman that the talks did not include restoration of diplomatic relations, broken off 23 years ago.

In Washington, US State Department Spokesman Philip Reeker, agreed.

“Diplomatic relations are not what’s on the table in discussions with Iran,” Reeker said, adding that Washington had been represented at the talks by Zalmay Khalilzad, President George W. Bush’s special envoy to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Talks with officials from Iran ... grew directly out of needing to deal with some practical matters dealing with Afghanistan and then we extended this to Iraq,” he said.

“This is not somehow a new opening of diplomatic relations,” Reeker said. “This is an opportunity to deal with some practical issues.”

In Amman, the US official said US representatives in Geneva are raising issues “of particular concern to the United States, where we think there is an advantage talking to Iran,” which Washington fears could seek to destablise Iraq.—AFP