Iran, Iraq and North Korea have angrily denied charges that they exported terror and were trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, accusations levelled by President George Bush in his State of the Union address.
The Iranian Foreign Minister, Mr Kamal Kharrazi, said the "arrogant" statements by Mr Bush were a pretext for the United States to continue supporting Israel's attacks against Palestinians.
"Bush is intending to divert public opinion from the Middle East issues by raising up a new subject and thereby pave the ground for the US to continue support for Israel in suppressing the Palestinian nation," he said.
The White House said Mr Bush did not intend to signal imminent military action against Iran, Iraq and North Korea when he said they form an "axis of evil". White House spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, said Mr Bush's use of the phrase was "more rhetorical than historical" and not a historical link between these countries and the second World War alliance between Germany, Japan and Italy, known as the Axis.
The government spokesmen added the United States continued to offer unconditional talks with Iran and North Korea, despite Mr Bush's warnings about their potential threat to America.
The State Department also insisted that the United States was still open to a dialogue with Iran and North Korea.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami was quoted yesterday as saying: "We think the American people should ask their politicians to abandon war-mongering and use their resources to help achieve a peace based on justice."
"These accusations will lead to a stronger unity of the Iranian nation against hegemonic countries," Mr Khatami said.
Mr Khatami rejected Mr Bush's remarks as "rude" and said they smacked of Washington's domineering attitude towards Iran before the 1979 revolution which toppled the US-backed shah.
"The American president's remarks not only showed that he does not have the ability to learn from history but also that the US policy is now worse and more unrealistic than under his predecessors," Mr Khatami said.
In Baghdad, the head of the Iraqi parliament's foreign and Arab relations committee, Mr Salim al-Qubaisi, said: "Bush's accusation against Iraq is baseless" because "Iraq has said clearly that it no longer possesses any weapons of mass destruction and no longer has the ability to develop them". Mr Al-Qubaisi said the speech might foreshadow a new attack on Iraq, as some top officials in the Bush administration reportedly have been urging, "but such threats do not scare us, as the Iraqi people are well-prepared to repel any aggression or foolishness by the American-Zionist administration".
A prominent Iraqi opposition group was "very, very encouraged" by Mr Bush's remarks on Iraq. Mr Al-Sharif Ali bin Hussein, spokesman for the London-based Iraqi National Congress (INC), told reporters after a meeting at the State Department that Washington's number-three diplomat had assured him a regime change in Iraq was a US foreign policy priority.
In North Korea, the state's official news agency carried a newspaper commentary that called Mr Bush's comments "sophism intended to justify [the US] military presence in South Korea and persistently pursue the policy of aggression" against the north.
The back-and-forth between Washington and Tehran represents a significant heightening of tension between the two long-time antagonists.
One of the key stumbling blocks has been the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the United States accuses Iran of supporting Palestinian terrorist groups, and Iran accuses the United States of blindly backing Israel, no matter what its tactics.