Iranian President Mohammad Khatami stated on Sunday that Iran has no hostility towards the American nation, but is against US domination.

"We have no hostility towards the American nation, what is important is the philosophy and the outlook that the Iranian nation will never surrender to domination," Khatami said in a meeting with students in the Science and Technology University in Tehran.

He said that the Iranian nation respects all nations in the world and believes that relations must be based on mutual respect and shattering of the wall of mistrust.

Khatami said that the claim on the existence of a wall of mistrust between Iran and the US was not a slogan - the Iranian nation feels that the US had dominated its fate from the 1953 coup to the 1979 Islamic revolution.

He said that the US-led coup on August 19, 1953 which ousted the government of former Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq was in fact a prelude to the stabilization of the US domination over the fate of the Iranian people.

But the student movement launched on December 7, 1953 (against the US domination) opened a new chapter in the political history of the Iranian people, he said.

"Isn't the Iranian nation right to blame all the damage and humiliation it has been subject to throughout those years on the incorrect US policy?" argued the Iranian president.

Referring to the remark made by the US President Bill Clinton earlier this year that the US might have mistreated Iran and Muslims, Khatami said that Clinton's remark was an important confession.

However, if it was a political game, it would solve no problem, he noted.

Over the past few months, several senior US officials made overtures to Iran for "unconditional dialog" to improve relations between the two countries which were severed in 1980.

However, Iranian officials repeatedly claimed that the US must take positive steps to change its hostile policy towards Iran, otherwise any talks on relations would be "meaningless."

"The US has not shown a national will to improve relations with Iran," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said early this month.

And the contradictory statements by US officials indicated differences inside the US government towards Iran, he added. (Xinhua) 12/12/99 11:32 GMT