Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent a letter to US President George W. Bush proposing new ways to resolve “the current vulnerable situation in the world”, an Iranian official said yesterday.

“In this letter, he has given an analysis of the current world situation, of the root of existing problems and of new ways of getting out of the current vulnerable situation in the world,” government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said. Ahmadinejad had said earlier in the day that he would announce some “important news”. It was not immediately clear whether he was flagging the letter to Bush.

The United States has spearheaded action against Iran’s nuclear programme, which it says is aimed at building atomic weapons. Iran, which has been reported to the UN Security Council, says it needs nuclear fuel only for power stations. Elham told a weekly news conference Ahmadinejad’s letter would be delivered to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which represents US interests in Iran.

The United States and Iran severed official diplomatic ties in 1980, amid a crisis that began when a group of radical students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage.