TEHRAN, May 8: Iran’s president sent an unprecedented letter to US President George Bush on Monday, suggesting ways to ease tension over Tehran’s nuclear programme, but it was not clear if it offered any compromise.

The message was handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, Philippe Welti, by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. In Washington, the White House said it was still ‘unaware’ of the letter.

US intelligence chief John Negroponte said the move may have been timed to influence a UN Security Council debate on Iran. “Certainly one of the hypotheses you’d have to examine is whether and in what way the timing of the dispatch of that letter is connected with trying in some manner to influence the debate before the Security Council,” Mr Negroponte told reporters.

Mr Ahmadinejad wrote to Mr Bush looking for ‘new ways of getting out of the current delicate situation of the world’.

His letter is the first publicly announced personal communication from an Iranian president to his US counterpart since the 1979 revolution.

Iranian government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said the letter mentioned the nuclear dispute, but he declined to say whether it offered direct talks with the United States.

Mr Elham told reporters that the message ‘goes beyond the nuclear question’.

“In this letter, while analysing the world situation and finding the roots of the problems, he (Mr Ahmadinejad) has proposed new ways for getting out of the existing vulnerable world situation,” Mr Elham said.

“It is not an open letter which can be made public,” foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said, adding its content ‘will be made public at the right time’.

“The letter contains interesting things. It is written in English,” a source in Mr Ahmadinejad’s office said.— Reuters/AFP

Concerns not addressed: US