A woman weeps during Friday prayers in the partly-damaged Jameh Saheb al-Zaman mosque in quake-hit Bam. (AFP)

Washington, Jan. 2: The US has approached Iran about dispatching a high-level humanitarian mission to Tehran, headed by Senator Elizabeth Dole (North Carolina) and include a member of the Bush family, US and Iranian officials said yesterday.

The delegation would carry additional assistance for survivors of last week’s earthquake that killed more than 28,000 Iranians. The overture, made by Washington on Tuesday, awaits a response from the government of President Mohammad Khatami, US officials said.

The mission would be the first public US official visit since the 1979-81 hostage ordeal, when Iranian students held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

The only diplomacy since then was during the arms-for-hostages swap in the mid-1980s, when President Reagan’s former national security adviser, Robert McFarlane, and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council staff secretly visited Tehran.

The idea for the trip grew out of two simultaneous moves earlier this week, according to US officials. In conversations with senior advisers on Sunday, President George W. Bush asked if there was anything more the US could do to help Iran cope with a natural disaster that destroyed the 2,000-year-old city of Bam and killed or left homeless its population of 80,000 people.

At the same time, Dole, former head of the American Red Cross, independently contacted the state department about travelling to Iran with a Red Cross delegation to provide additional aid material, US officials said.

The administration embraced the proposal and began exploring the idea of expanding the mission to include an as-yet unspecified member of the Bush family, and others, US officials said yesterday.

Secretary of state Colin Powell said, “At this time of great emergency, we must do everything we can to help people in desperate need.” US officials insisted the mission would be humanitarian, not diplomatic, despite the unavoidable symbolism of any official American delegation visiting the Islamic republic.

After hunting quail yesterday, Bush was asked by reporters whether easing the aid restrictions represented an easing of the US relationship with Iran.

“What we’re doing in Iran is we’re showing the Iranian people the American people care and that we’ve got great compassion for human suffering. I eased restrictions in order to be able to get humanitarian aid into the country,” Bush said.

He said the US still has serious differences with Iran. “The Iranian government must listen to the voices of those who long for freedom, must turn over al Qaida that are in their custody and must abandon their nuclear weapons programme. In the meantime, we appreciate the fact the Iranian government is willing to allow our humanitarian aid flights into their country.”