An Iranian minister has said the government wants to reopen negotiations with the European Union over the fatwa - or religious edict - which effectively condemns the British author Salmon Rushdie to death.

Islamic Guidance Minister Seyyed Ataollah Mohajerani told Britain's Independent newspaper that Rushdie would not be executed under the fatwa, but the government could not cancel it.

The fatwa was issued by the former spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini after the publication of Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, saying it was blasphemous. Rushdie has lived under police protection ever since the fatwa was issued in 1989.

Mr Mohajerani said he wanted to resume talks now that European ambassadors had returned to Tehran. Negotiations were stoped when EU ambassadors left Tehran after a German court blamed Iran for plotting the murder of Kurdish dissidents in Berlin.

Mr Mohajerani told the Independent: "It was announced officially that Iran will not execute regarding the fatwa. But a fatwa from from a religious authority is not something to be cancelled by a government and the government of Iran cannot ignore it or cancel it."

The Independent described Mr Mohajerani as one of the most liberal ministers in the new government of President Mohammed Khatami, who won a landslide victory in elections earlier this year pledging to try to end Iran's international isolation.

But Salmon Rushdie was sceptical about any supposed softening of position in Tehran. "My own attitude is wait and see," Rushdie told the Independent. "People seem very eager to believe that change is taking place on very scant evidence," he said.
 

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