The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Cairo

Iran's top military commander said Saturday that his forces would retaliate against American military bases in the Persian Gulf if they are involved in any possible future attack on Iran.

General Mohammad Ali Jaafari, commander of the Iran's Revolutionary Guards, told Al-Jazeera television that it is Iran's "natural right to respond" if attacked by land or air.

But he assured Arab Gulf countries - some of whom are home to U.S. military bases - that only American forces would come under counterattack.

"We realize that there is worry among neighboring countries - Muslim countries whose lands host U.S. military stations," Jaafari said. He spoke in Farsi, which the network dubbed over in Arabic.

"However, if the U.S. launches a war against us, and if it uses these stations to attack Iran with missiles, then through the strength and precision of our own missiles, we are capable of targeting only the U.S. military forces who attack us," he told the station.

On a recent visit to the Gulf countries, President Bush branded Iran the leading state sponsor of terror, and said "all options" against Tehran remain on the table.

Many of the Gulf's Sunni Arab states want Washington to keep Shiite Iran's ambitions in check, but are nervous about the impact of any military confrontation.

The U.S. military has several bases in Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Yemen. Many Gulf Arabs have expressed concern that those bases make them vulnerable to attack.

Another report adds: Iran's foreign minister said on Saturday he could envisage the Islamic Republic resuming diplomatic ties with the United States one day but that many hurdles remained to normal relations.

Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran was not committed to "cutting relations with the United States forever", despite tensions with Washington over its nuclear programme and U.S. accusations that Iran has fomented violence in neighbouring Iraq.

Iran regularly calls for a change in behaviour from the United States, which cut diplomatic ties in 1980 after radical students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took diplomats hostage during the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"How and when this relationship can take place again, it depends on so many factors," Mottaki told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss alpine town of Davos..

Asked if this year's U.S. presidential election could mark a turning point in relations, he said: "We are trying not to look at the individuals, to the parties, but lookingtat the policies."