THE US: Iran has warned the United States that any attack against it would be an "irreparable mistake" and denied US claims it was harbouring al-Qaeda members.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman also dismissed President Bush's charge last week that Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction. "I only hope the Americans will not make such a huge, irreparable mistake," Mr Hamid-Reza Asefi said after being asked about the possibility of a US attack on the Islamic republic. "It would be better if American leaders expressed themselves on the basis of real facts and if they furnished some proof."
The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, said on Sunday he had no doubt that Tehran helped members of the al-Qaeda network and its allies, Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban, to escape into Iran.
"We deny all reports about the presence of al-Qaeda members in Iran," Mr Asefi said. The US news weekly Time said that some 250 senior Taliban and al-Qaeda members were believed to have crossed the border into Iran via a smugglers' route just before the Taliban's Herat contingent fled last November.
The Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, in an interview published yesterday, said Iran has delivered 8,000 long-range Katyusha rockets that could hit several large Israeli cities to Lebanon's Shia fundamentalist Hizbullah.
"If Hizbullah thinks that they will fire those missiles at Israel from the Lebanon, then we have to warn Lebanon," said Mr Peres, speaking in New York.
The Iraqi Vice-President, Mr Taha Yassin Ramadan, said the US anti-terrorist policies could attract an "even more dreadful" response than September 11th.
In Tokyo, the US military commander in the Pacific called on the region to stay on the alert against North Korea's missiles and its missile exports, which he said could serve terrorism. With Iran and Iraq, North Korea was characterised in Mr Bush's State of the Union speech as an "axis of evil".
South Korea's Foreign Minister, Mr Han Seung-Soo, was dismissed yesterday as he flew back to Seoul from key talks with US officials about North Korea.
Mr Han, who has been in office less than a year, was apparently a victim of the growing war of words between the US and North Korea, according to media reports. With threats from Washington mounting, Iraq has offered a "dialogue" with UN Secretary-General without preconditions, the UN announced yesterday. No details were given on what the talks would entail or whether Iraq would allow UN arms inspectors into the country.