Date: 07 Mar 2000
Time: 13:31:05
Remote Name: 156.29.145.175
03/07/2000 Reuters English News Service (C) Reuters Limited 2000.
PRAGUE, March 7 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, asked to confirm a report the United States was considering lifting selected sanctions against Iran , said on Tuesday that her country was watching reforms in Tehran closely.
"We have indicated an interest in a government to government dialogue," she told a news conference during an official visit to Prague.
"But the main thing here is that they need to...not try to acquire weapons of mass destruction, not support terrorism, and support the Middle East peace process."
She did not specify whether a Los Angeles Times report on Tuesday, saying the Clinton Administration was considering lifting sanctions on Iranian caviar, carpets and pistachio imports after the election of a pro-reform coalition in Tehran last month, was accurate.
But she made clear that it was too soon for the United States to make the kind of changes in policy that reformist leaders in Iran are seeking following the election last month. "I think that we all we all want to look very carefully at what is going on in Iran ," she said.
Members of the coalition have called on Washington to take the first concrete steps towards improving relations, which broke down after the Islamic revolution in 1979 and the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by militant students.
U.S. laws and regulations currently prohibit virtually all commercial transactions with Iran , which Washington accuses of supporting what it calls terrorist groups.
Albright, who is on a three-day visit to her native Czech Republic, has asked Prague to halt shipments of air conditioning equipment for an Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr which Washington says could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons.