Iran's Leader Hints At 'Dialogue'

Iran's president inched toward better relations with the United States on Wednesday, telling a forum of world leaders of the "miracle of dialogue that makes coexistence possible."

The statement by President Mohammad Khatami at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was the latest gesture in a complex diplomatic dance between Washington and Tehran, two sworn enemies whom the war on terrorism and natural disaster have forced into tentative cooperation.

When asked by CBS News Correspondent Tom Fenton if his reference to the "miracle of dialogue" included dialogue with the United States, Khatami said he was speaking of a dialogue between scholars and wisemen, and not proposing a political dialogue.

But he did say he hoped the recent change in the tone of U.S. statements on Iran is not a ploy.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said last month that he sees the beginnings of a new attitude in Iran that could lead to a restoration of more friendly relations between the United States and the Islamic republic that President Bush has called part of an "axis of evil."

"There are things happening, and therefore we should keep open the possibility of dialogue at an appropriate point in the future," Powell told The Washington Post.

Powell said he saw signs of "a new attitude in Iran … not one of total, open generosity," said Powell. "But they realize that the world is watching and the world is prepared to take action."

Iranian leaders have agreed to permit unannounced inspections of the country's nuclear energy program, made overtures to moderate Arab governments and accepted an offer of U.S. humanitarian aid following a devastating earthquake last month.

In his interview with CBS News, Khatami pointed out that Iran has been helpful to the United States by cooperating in the establishment of the interim governing council in Iraq, and that Iran was the first government to recognize it.

Iran also acquiesced over the U.S. invasion of neighboring Afghanistan in 2001 and was fairly quiet about the war in Iraq this year.

The recent moves hint at a gradual warming of relations between two countries. But it is a dialogue neither government seems ready to acknowledge openly, despite the evidence of behind the scenes cooperation

Iran, while accepting most aid, refused a high-level U.S. aid mission after the devastating earthquake. And Khatami was somewhat critical of attempts to impose American style democracy on the Middle East.

"Democratic norms are not packaged goods ready for export," he said. "Establishment of democracy is a process rather than a revolution."

Khatami, a reformist, is facing a political crisis at home, where hard-line clerics have barred thousands of reform candidates from running for parliamentary elections later this year.

For its part, the U.S. still accuses Iran of sheltering al Qaeda members. And when announcing U.S. aid to quake victims last month, President Bush said Iran "must abandon their nuclear weapons program."

The halting steps toward reconciliation follow a half-century of bad blood between the United States and Iran.

In 1953, Washington orchestrated a coup that overthrew an elected Iranian government.

Twenty-six years later, radical Islamists overthrew the U.S.-installed shah and overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. They took Americans hostage and held them until January 1981. Eight U.S. soldiers died during a failed attempt to rescue the hostages in 1980.

Iran has long been listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, with its alleged links to Hezbollah.

Officials in the Reagan administration sold arms to Iran in the 1980s to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon, as well as to fund the contra insurgency in Nicaragua.

In 1988, amid skirmishes with Iranian gunboats in the Persian Gulf, the Navy vessel USS Vincennes mistook an Iranian jetliner for a military aircraft and shot it down, killing some 290 people on board.

In 2002, Mr. Bush dubbed Iran a member of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea. Last year, the Bush administration accused Iran of trying to destabilize postwar Iraq, seeking a nuclear bomb and harboring al Qaeda figures linked to bombings in Saudi Arabia.

Some conservative advisers to the president suggested a policy of "regime change" toward Iran. U.S. forces in Iraq briefly agreed a cease-fire with a terrorist group based in Iraq that opposes Iran's ruling clerics.