"We are not mediating (between Tehran and Washington). We don't meddle in other people's affairs," Hamad al-Rashdi told AFP.

"But conciliation efforts within the framework of meetings under the umbrella of the United Nations, the Arab group and regional groupings are ongoing ... such as the meetings now taking place at the UN," he said.

Pro-Western Oman, Iran's co-guardian of the strategic Strait of Hormuz entrance to the oil-rich Gulf, has close links with the Islamic Republic in various domains, Rashdi said.

"What interests us and interests everyone -- Gulf littoral states as well as the industrialized world -- is to safeguard security and peace in the region ... I think there are welcome signs that things are moving in the direction of pacification and cooperation," the Omani official said.

He referred in particular to remarks by US Secretary of State Colin Powell pointing to a possible "dialogue over the nuclear crisis."

In an interview with The Washington Post published Saturday, Powell suggested the United States might restart delicate talks with Iran, but said the administration of President George W. Bush would need "absolute assurance" that Iran's nuclear program is not intended to develop nuclear weapons.

"We have received a number of indications from Iran, and we are responding to those indications," Powell said, calling Tehran's signals "encouraging."

Iran faces an October 31 deadline set by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog to report whether its nuclear programs are designed to produce weapons.

Oman has long had good relations with Iran, keeping channels open to Tehran during the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war during which other Gulf Arab countries sided with Baghdad.

Rashdi would not say if the United States was pressing Oman to send troops to US-occupied Iraq, noting that Washington had issued an "open invitation" to all countries to join a stabilization force there.

But he stressed that dispatching troops was not on the table as far as Muscat is concerned.

"We have no intention of sending Omani troops to Iraq ... We are not in the habit of sending troops to other countries, except within the framework of the Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC's) Peninsula Shield," Rashdi said.

He said a decision on whether or not to send troops was for each country to make, not a "collective" decision, and this applied to the GCC, which groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates alongside Oman.

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