“This article is aimed at torpedoing relations between Iran and Azerbaijan,” Akhundov said

MOSCOW, May 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Washington has drawn up a plan for military action against Iran principally using bases in Iraq but also some in Georgia and Azerbaijan, a Russian newspaper reported Thursday, May 29.

But Azerbaijan flatly denied the report while the Georgian embassy in Moscow said "it knew nothing about U.S. plans in respect of Iran," which Washington accuses of supporting terrorism and having a secret nuclear weapons programme, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"The military action is designed to complete a popular uprising on which the Pentagon is counting," said Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily. It said that the operation's launch date would be decided at a meeting to be held Thursday in the White House.

A deal had been struck between the U.S. administration and Azerbaijani President Heidar Aliyev for American troops to deploy in the Caucasus state, it added.

But a spokesman for Aliyev said Thursday that the claim was "a total lie."

"Not one word corresponds to reality. This article is aimed at torpedoing relations between Iran and Azerbaijan, which are improving," Fuad Akhundov told the Moscow Echo radio station.

Asked about a U.S. military intervention in Iran, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said earlier this week that the U.S. planned to maintain a "diplomatic approach."

The United States has charged that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons programme and publicly accused the country of harbouring al-Qaeda fleeing members and  doing too little to crack down on terrorists, including al-Qaeda members Washington has linked to May 12 bombings in Riyadh.

Tehran categorically denied on Wednesday, May 28, Washington’s charges it had secret nuclear facilities or harbored members of the al-Qaeda network.

Iran had nothing to do with the "fanatic and perverted beliefs" of al-Qaeda and that any doubts about Iran's nuclear program should be cleared up by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said.

On Sunday, May 25, The Washington Post reported that Pentagon officials were pressing hard for triggering public uprising in Iran to topple the Iranian regime.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami Khatami condemned Wednesday terrorist organizations that carry out attacks in the name of Islam, but also lashed out at the "unilateralist" response to such terrorist attacks, in an implicit criticism of the conduct of the United States in its declared war on terror.

"Our world has been buffeted from two sides by violent dogmatists and arrogant powers.

"On the one side terrorism and fanaticism have distorted the humane and freedom-seeking face of religion, and on the other the seeking of hegemony and unilateralism have made a mockery of such respected concepts of freedom and democracy," averred Khatami.