Iran leader writes to Bush

2006-05-08 11:23

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has written to President George W Bush proposing "new solutions" to their differences in the first letter from an Iranian leader to an American president in 27 years, government spokesperson Gholam-Hossein Elham said on Monday.

The letter was sent via the Swiss Embassy in Tehran which has a US interests section, Elham told a press conference.

In the letter, Ahmadinejad proposes "new solutions for getting out of international problems and current fragile situation of the world," Elham said.

Elham did not mention the nuclear dispute - the major issue on which Washington and Tehran are at loggerheads. The United States is leading Western efforts to pass a UN Security Council motion censuring Iran for refusing to cease enrichment of uranium.

It is the first time that an Iranian president has written to his US counterpart since 1979, when the two countries broke relations after Iranian militants stormed the US Embassy and held the occupants hostage for more than a year.

On Sunday, Ahmadinejad renewed Iran's threat to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the U.N. Security Council imposes sanctions over its nuclear program.

The United States is backing attempts by Britain and France to win Security Council approval for a UN resolution that would threaten possible further measures if Iran does not suspend uranium enrichment - a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity or, if sufficiently processed, to make atomic weapons.

- AP