Iran denies envoy delivered tough secret message from Bush

Iran Focus:

London, Aug. 31 - Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied reports that United States President George W. Bush had written a letter to Iranian leaders threatening them with tough action if Iran did not back down from its threatening stance on its suspected nuclear weapons program.

“A knowledgeable source in the Foreign Ministry denied reports by certain Arabic-language dailies, which said that Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed [Sabah] Al-Salem Al-Sabah had brought a message from the United States in his trip to Iran”, the official IRNA news agency said.

“This news had no truth in it and is baseless”, the Foreign Ministry official told the news agency.

The Dubai-based daily al-Khaleej on Monday quoted knowledgeable Kuwaiti officials as saying that the Persian Gulf state’s Foreign Minister had delivered a message from President George W. Bush to the Iranian leadership, urging the Islamic Republic to return to the negotiation table so as to avoid instability and insecurity in the region. Bush warned Iran’s leaders of serious consequences if they continued their intransigent stance, the daily wrote.

During his 24-hour visit to Tehran, the Kuwaiti foreign minister met separately Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former President Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. On his return to Kuwait, he praised Rafsanjani, who was defeated by Ahmadinejad in the recent presidential elections amid acrimonious charges of widespread rigging.

“Mr. Rafsanjani expressed surprise that our boundary disagreement with Iran has not been resolved, although our talks began when he was president”, Al-Sabah told the Kuwaiti press.

Reports of a stern warning to Iran’s leaders from President Bush also appeared simultaneously on a Persian-language website close to allies of ex-President Mohammad Khatami.

The Dubai-based Al-Khaleej wrote, “For roughly the past two months, Kuwait, through political meetings and contacts, has been trying to act as an unofficial and unannounced go-between between Iran and the United States and also between Iran and European countries, and has become more active in recent times”.

The Persian Gulf daily wrote that the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister had met jointly with the ambassadors of the European trio – Britain, France, and Germany – and held a separate meeting with the U.S. ambassador to UAE prior to his trip to Tehran.