A look at past U.S.-Iranian ties

A history of official contact _ and near misses _ between U.S. and Iranian officials.

Relations cooled in early 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini ousted the shah. In November of that year Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. This led the United States to cut off diplomatic relations with Iran.

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_ May 2007: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki exchange a brief, polite greeting at a conference in Egypt.

_ March 2007: U.S. and Iranian envoys participate in a conference in Baghdad.

_ September 2006: Rice was in the same room at the United Nations as Mottaki during a meeting on Iraq.

_ May 2006: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad writes President Bush an 18-page letter, lambasting the U.S. leader for his handling of the Sept. 11 attacks.

_ November 2004: Secretary of State Colin Powell is seated at dinner next to his Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharrazi, during a 20-nation meeting in Egypt to discuss Iraq's future.

_ 2001-2002: Officials from both sides communicate before and after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban, whom Tehran also opposed.

_ September 2000: President Bill Clinton lingered after his address to the United Nations to hear Iranian President Mohammad Khatami speak. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Kharrazi attend an eight-nation meeting on Afghanistan.

_ March 2000: The Clinton administration lifts a ban on U.S. imports of Iranian luxury goods and says it would seek a legal settlement that could free Iranian assets frozen since 1979.

_ 1985-86: A series of secret meetings take place between the U.S. and Iran, in which the United States sold weapons to Iran and gave the proceeds to Central American rebels. The scandal came to be known as the Iran-Contra affair.

_ April 1980: The United States breaks diplomatic relations with Iran and imposes economic sanctions over the hostage crisis.

_ December 1977: President Jimmy Carter visits Iran and in a New Year's Eve toast says, "Iran, under the great leadership of the shah, is an island of stability" in the Middle East. The State Department says this was the last "substantive" high-level meeting between the two nations.

_ May 1975: Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi visits the United States and meets with President Gerald R. Ford.