Tehran: Iran has no immediate plans to normalise relations with the United States of America, Iran's Foreign Ministry said today.

"Given continuation of hostile policies of the United States against Iran, we have no plans for normalisation of relations with America. This issue is not in our agenda," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a press conference.

Hosseini's comment was apparently intended to clarify remarks by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who said on Thursday that he was willing to restore diplomatic relations with the United States but doing so now would make Iran more vulnerable to US espionage.

Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, said Iran never said the severed relations were forever and that he would be the the "first one to support" resumption of diplomatic ties with Washington but he believed doing so now would be "harmful" to Iran's interests.

The United States cut diplomatic ties with Iran shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution then militant students seized the US Embassy in Tehran and published sensitive documents they found inside documenting American intelligence-gathering in the country.

The embassy, labeled the "Den of spies," is occasionally open to public as a museum documenting American misdeeds in Iran and the region. The Swiss Embassy in Tehran looks after US interests in Iran, while the Iranians have an interest section in Pakistan's embassy in Washington.

Source : PTI