![\"Ashraf](\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2007\/01\/Ashraf-city.jpg\" "\\"Ashraf-city\\"")
Agence France Presse, LONDON – Iran offered to cut off aid and support for the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas, and promised full transparency on its nuclear program in a secret letter to the United States soon after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British media reported.<\/p>\n
According to the BBC, the letter, which it obtained, was unsigned, but the US State Department understood that it came with the approval of the highest Iranian authorities.<\/p>\n
The Islamic republic also offered to use its influence to support stabilisation in Iraq, and in return asked for a halt in hostile American behaviour, an abolition of all sanctions, and the pursuit and repatriation of members of the Mujahedeen Khalq (People’s MOjahedIn of Iran, PMOI).<\/p>\n
The PMOI is an exiled Iranian opposition group which fought alongside former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s army in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, and is currently based in Iraq.<\/p>\n
Initially, the State Department was positive on the offer, according to Lawrence Wilkerson, former US secretary of state Colin Powell’s chief of staff, who spoke to the BBC.<\/p>\n
"As soon as it got to the White House, and as soon as it got to the Vice-President’s (Dick Cheney) office, the old mantra of ‘we don’t talk to evil’ … reasserted itself," Wilkerson told the broadcaster.<\/p>\n
"To our embarrassment at State … the cable that I saw go back to the Swiss actually upbraided the Swiss for being so bold and audacious as to present such a proposal to us on behalf of the Iranians."<\/p>\n
According to Wilkerson, the State Department was also offered a deal by the Iranians after it led the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 which involved Iran giving up senior Al-Qaeda terror network figures in return for help pursuing the PMOI.<\/p>\n
Powell and Wilkerson were unsure how high in the Iranian government the approach came from, however, and did not pursue the offer, the BBC said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Agence France Presse, LONDON – Iran offered to cut off aid and support for the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas, and promised full transparency on its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-terrorism-a-fundamentalism"},"yoast_head":"\n