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The Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Iran follows the policy of cooperation with US groups, including academics, the elite and influential non-governmental bodies.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters that the policy, which is "not a new thing," has been in practice and the lectures delivered by Iranian scholars in the United States arein line with the policy.
Asefi said Tehran has been trying to enlighten the US public on the realities in Iran because they are otherwise under influence of the worst kind of "negative and one-sided" official propaganda against the Islamic republic.
It is natural for the permanent envoy of Iran to the United Nations to hold talks with non-governmental bodies, academics and the elite in the United States, he added.
The United States and Iran have severed diplomatic relations since 1980 after Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took its staff hostage for 444 days.
Earlier in the year, US President George W. Bush accused Iran of being part of the "axis of evil" in attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction.
(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2002)
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