Iran poll shows strong support for U.S. ties

TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) -- An opinion poll carried out by Iran's culture ministry shows that only 8.1 percent of Iranians perceive the United States as an enemy, newspapers reported on Tuesday.

Contrary to the official no-compromise line pushed by establishment hardliners, 55.7 percent said they wanted the restoration of full diplomatic ties with the United States, the daily Entekhab said.

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Only 29.7 percent of the 1,839 Tehrani citizens aged over 15 polled said they were against the resumption of ties and 14.6 percent said they had no opinion.

The U.S. government broke ties with Iran in early 1980 to protest against the occupation of the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran by militant students. Some 52 Americans were held captive in the compound for 444 days.

The two countries have been parties to bitter diplomatic tugs-of-war ever since.

Hopes for normalization of ties after Iran's moderate President Mohammad Khatami took office in 1997 quickly faded as both sides continued to accuse each other of wrongdoing.

But Iran's speaker of parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, who was recently in New York for a world inter-parliamentary meeting, said he was told that 77 percent of Americans believed that U.S. sanctions against Iran should be lifted.

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