“Contacts between Iranians and the American people will be a useful step for better understanding of the two nations,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. Mottaki spoke to reporters Tuesday in New York, where he was attending a U.N. meeting.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has approved studying the idea of putting U.S. diplomats in an “interests section” that would be hosted by a third party’s embassy in Iran’s capital. However, State Department officials note that the idea is very preliminary and not anywhere near fruition.

Interests sections are a way to let a country post diplomats in a nation with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.

If the U.S. did open such an outpost, it would be the country’s first diplomatic presence in Iran since the two nations severed relations in 1979 after the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by students loyal to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini.

At present, Swiss diplomats represent U.S. interests in Tehran. In Washington, Iranian officials staff an interests section in the Pakistani Embassy.

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