TEHRAN (FNA) -- The Bush administration will announce ‘late this month’ that it plans to open an interests section in Tehran, a senior U.S. official says.

The White House intends to show its commitment to a diplomatic approach toward Tehran and its nuclear program, The Washington Post reported the unnamed official as saying.
The report comes after influential Democratic senators backed the idea of opening of a U.S. interests section in Tehran.
“A limited diplomatic presence in Iran would improve our understanding of the competing political factions that influence Tehran’s decision-making,” Senators including John Kerry said in a letter to President Bush.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry has announced that there has yet to be an official request made by the U.S. officials for the establishment of an interests section in Tehran.
The United States and Iran broke diplomatic relations in April 1980, after Iranian students seized the United States’ espionage center at its embassy in the heart of Tehran. The two countries have had tense relations ever since.
White House officials have repeatedly threatened that they remain prepared to launch military strikes against Iran over its uranium enrichment.
Although Washington has recently toned down its go-to-war rhetoric and is propagating the idea of diplomacy with Non-Proliferation Treaty signatory Tehran, it continues to accuse Tehran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
Iran, however, insists that it has maintained cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to clarify the nature of its nuclear program.
According to the UN nuclear watchdog, Iran is enriching uranium to 3 percent, a rate completely consistent with electricity generation.
Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West’s illegitimate calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.
Tehran has dismisses West’s demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians’ national resolve to continue the path.
Iran has also insisted that it would continue enriching uranium because it needs to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it is building in the southwestern town of Darkhoveyn as well as its first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr.
The Islamic Republic has also repeatedly stressed that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of IAEA’s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.
Yet, the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran’s nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.
Washington’s push for additional UN penalties contradicts the report by 16 U.S. intelligence bodies that endorsed the civilian nature of Iran’s programs. Following the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and similar reports by the IAEA head - one in November and the other one in February - which praised Iran’s truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities and announced settlement of outstanding issues with Tehran, any effort to impose further sanctions on Iran seems to be completely irrational.
The February report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, praised Iran’s cooperation in clearing up all of the past questions over its nuclear program, vindicating Iran’s nuclear program and leaving no justification for any new UN sanctions.
Observers believe that the shift of policy by the White House to send William Burns - the third highest-ranking diplomat in the U.S. - to the talks with Iran happened after Bush’s attempt to rally international pressure against Iran lost steam due to the growing international vigilance.
The U.S. President George W. Bush finished a tour of the Middle East in winter to gain the consensus of his Arab allies to unite against Iran.
But hosting officials of the regional nations dismissed Bush’s allegations, describing Tehran as a good friend of their countries.
Many world nations have called the UN Security Council pressure against Iran unjustified, especially in the wake of recent IAEA reports, stressing that Tehran’s case should be normalized and returned to the UN nuclear watchdog due to the Islamic Republic’s increased cooperation with the agency.