Britain?s Prince Charles met Iranian President Mohammad Khatami yesterday during the first visit by a British royal to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled Iranian monarch Mohammad Reza Shah.

Charles, whose trip reflects improved ties between London and Tehran, was due to travel later on Monday to the ancient citadel city of Bam which was levelled by a powerful earthquake on December 26 that killed more than 40,000 people.

The last official visit by British royals to Iran was 33 years ago when Charles?s father Prince Philip and sister Princess Anne attended lavish celebrations organised by the shah for the 2,500th anniversary of the Peacock Throne.

Political tensions are high in Iran where Khatami and his reformist allies are outraged by a religious hardline body?s effort to disqualify hundreds of candidates from parliamentary elections this month. The visit also coincides with celebrations this week to mark the 25th anniversary of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini?s revolution to create an Islamic state in Iran.

Relations between Iran and Britain have often been strained since the revolution, notably when Khomeini issued a religious fatwa in the late 1980s calling for British author Salman Rushdie to be killed for insulting Islam.

But Britain has in recent years been at the forefront of a European Union policy of engagement with Iran, in stark contrast with the line of isolation pursued by Washington.

While British officials stressed that Charles?s visit was purely humanitarian focused on Bam, some Iranian newspapers attached a political weight to the trip.

?This symbolic trip is a turning point in Iran?s relations with the West,? the liberal Sharq newspaper said in a front-page editorial. Sharq said that while Charles, who paid a morale-boosting visit to British troops in Iraq on Sunday, had been given the go-ahead to visit Bam, a U.S. offer last month of a humanitarian mission led by Senator Elizabeth Dole was rejected by Tehran.

Photographers who were allowed in for the start of the meeting with Khatami said Charles had told the Iranian president he was suffering from back pain. The 60-year-old Khatami, told to rest by doctors last week for his own back pains, quipped to the 55-year-old prince: ?It?s a sign of age.?

In Bam, Charles was due to meet a family whose livelihood depends on the region?s lush date and orange groves imperilled by damage to underground irrigation systems caused by the earthquake.

According to his official programme, Charles will also meet local government and Red Crescent officials and visit Bam?s ancient citadel where mud-brick walls crumbled like a sandcastle in the quake.