Iran will not give al Qaeda intelligence to US

Iran said yesterday it would not share intelligence with the United States about al Qaeda members it is holding and dismissed US charges anti-American fighters were slipping across its borders into Iraq.

US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said on Tuesday Washington was prepared to resume limited contacts with the Iranian government but that relations would not improve until Tehran shared intelligence on al Qaeda.

"We don't have any relations with American security services so there is no reason to do anything on this issue," government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told a weekly news conference.

President Mohammad Khatami rebuffed a call by President George W. Bush on Tuesday for Iran and Syria to tighten their borders to stop fighters crossing into Iraq.

"The accusations are not new, they have always made such baseless charges," Khatami told reporters.

The US has attributed an upsurge in violence in Iraq in part to foreign fighters that the US military has numbered between 1,000 and 3,000.

Washington broke off talks with Tehran over Iran's neighbours Afghanistan and Iraq in May after accusing Iran of sheltering al Qaeda members behind bombings in Saudi Arabia on May 12 which killed 35 people, including nine Americans.

Iran denies cooperating with al Qaeda and says it has caught and extradited hundreds of suspected members of Osama bin Laden's network who fled from Afghanistan and Pakistan in the last two years.

Mr Ramazanzadeh noted that Mr Armitage's comments on resuming talks with Iran were the first such remarks from a US official for some time but added that Tehran was waiting for Washington to take "practical steps" to improve relations.

"It is not possible to threaten a country, to block its assets, to accuse it and then want talks," he said.

Washington broke ties with Tehran shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Low-level talks have occasionally taken place in third countries to discuss specific issues but neither side has made a concerted effort to normalise relations.