Delegates from the United States and archfoe Iran engaged in a "heated" exchange at a counter-terrorism conference in Saudi Arabia, the local media reported but a US official insisted the encounter was "professional.""The exchange that took place in the first general assembly was a professional one reflecting differences in views between the US and Iranian delegations," a US embassy spokesperson in Riyadh told AFP. But the English-daily Saudi Gazette said the Iranian and US delegations at the closed-door conference were reportedly "locked in a heated exchange... when the issue of what constitutes terrorism arose."
Diplomatic sources told AFP that Saturday's address by US Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend had prompted the head of the Iranian delegation to give a speech in response. There were no details on the content of his speech. In her address, Townsend said she invoked US President George W. Bush's remarks from his State of the Union speech in which said Iran "remains the world's primary state sponsor of terror." But a member of the Iranian delegation said the US accusations were "baseless," adding that "Iran is a country that has been negatively affected by terrorism throughout the past two decades."