Iran Says U.S. Seeks to Renew Diplomatic Ties

MANAMA, Bahrain —  Iran said Saturday that the United States had sent two recent messages expressing a desire to re-establish diplomatic relations with Tehran.

But Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, added that his government saw “no good intentions on the part of the United States” in the messages.

Rafsanjani, whose statements were reported by Iran’s official news agency IRNA, also said that Iran’s relations with the Soviet Union have experienced “great developments” in recent weeks.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Rudi Boone said he was unaware of any reports of overtures to Iran by the United States and could not confirm Rafsanjani’s statement.

Rafsanjani’s report of the two messages represented the first suggestion that the United States was making overtures to Iran since he disclosed last October that President Reagan had sent his former national security adviser, Robert C. McFarlane, to Tehran in an effort to improve relations with Iran.

That disclosure led to the revelations that White House officials had shipped arms to Iran and diverted profits from the arms sales to the contras fighting the government in Nicaragua.

Rafsanjani was quoted Saturday as saying that Iran had received two messages from the Reagan Administration relayed by “regional countries” that he said were friends of the United States.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz acknowledged at a news conference on Aug. 6 that the governments of the United States and Iran regularly communicate with each other through the Swiss government, which represents the United States in Tehran, through the Algerian Embassy, which represents Iran in Washington, or through “good friends.” Shultz gave no indication of the nature of the exchanges, however.

‘We Have Our Doubts’

Rafsanjani said that in the two messages, “the U.S. has expressed willingness to have relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.” But he added that “we have our own doubts on these messages.”

He suggested that the United States should show its good intentions by freeing Iranian assets that Iran claims have been kept in the United States for the past decade. These claims center on $11 billion in military equipment that was ordered by Iran before the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi but either was not delivered or was rejected by revolutionary Iran as shoddy merchandise.

The United States and Iran have had no formal diplomatic relations since the 444-day hostage crisis that began when radical students overran the American Embassy in Tehran and abducted U.S. diplomats. The crisis ended with the release of the hostages in January, 1981.

Recently, tensions between the two countries rose when two ships, one owned by Kuwait and re-registered under the American flag and the other owned by a subsidiary of Texaco, struck mines planted in the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Both mines were believed to have been planted by Iran.

Attacking U.S. Interests

The Iranians also have repeatedly threatened to attack American interests after the deaths of 402 religious pilgrims, most of them Iranians, during violent clashes in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, at the time of the annual pilgrimage to that Islamic holy city.

Rafsanjani, appearing more conciliatory than any other Iranian leader has toward the United States in recent months, was quoted by IRNA as saying: “If our relations are changed from hostility to friendly ties, many things may be changed.”

Speaking of Iran’s relations with the Soviet Union, Rafsanjani said there have been “great developments” in recent weeks, but he gave no details. “I believe the future of bilateral cooperation is bright,” he said.

Earlier reports had suggested that despite ideological differences, the Soviet Union and Iran had agreed to new cooperation in the economic sphere. There was speculation that the Soviet Union might be prepared to allow Iran to export some of its crude oil production in a long-unused pipeline.

Iranian oil exports at the moment must all be shipped through the Persian Gulf and are subject to attack by Iraq, with which Iran has been at war for nearly seven years.