TEHRAN, Jan 6: Iran on Sunday attacked President George Bush’s planned trip to the Middle East, saying the landmark visit by its foe was aimed at interfering in relations between regional states.

Bush is due to become the first US president to visit Iran’s arch regional enemy Israel in nine years in a bid to hasten the search for peace with the Palestinians.

He will land in Israel on Wednesday and is also due to visit the Palestinian West Bank town of Ramallah as well as five Arab states, with the aim as well of increasing the pressure on Tehran over its nuclear programme.

“We see such a trip as interference in the relations of the countries in the region and propaganda,” foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters.

“Of course the countries in the region, regardless of such things, will pursue their bilateral and regional dealings,” he added, in Iran’s first official reaction to the trip.

Bush’s visit aims to build on efforts, begun at the US-sponsored conference in November in Annapolis, to jump-start peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

The US meeting was vehemently opposed by Iran.

Iran was furious that most Arab states, including its top regional ally Syria and Middle East heavyweight Saudi Arabia, sent representatives to the conference.

Hosseni said the United States drive for peace in the Middle East was a “cover to preserve the benefits of the Zionist regime” and was being pursued regardless of differences in the region.

“After the Annapolis summit, we saw that the Zionist regime immediately carried out some moves and showed that it is not committed” to forging ahead with peace efforts, Hosseini said.

During his trip, Bush is also expected to urge Arab states to put pressure on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme, which the West fears could be used to make atomic weapons but which Iran insists is entirely peaceful.

While a US intelligence report that said Tehran halted a nuclear weapons programme in 2003 has momentarily taken the heat out of the crisis, Washington still wants a third package of UN Security Council sanctions against Tehran.

The trip will also take the US president to Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

However, Hosseini rejected suggestions that the visit could lead to Iran being isolated in the region.

“They (the United States) have never been successful (in isolating Iran).

Despite the propaganda, we have seen the strengthening of Iran’s ties with other countries,” he said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadi-nejad last month became the first Iranian leader to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit, a visit hailed by Tehran as a breakthrough in its relations with the oil-rich Arab Gulf states.—AFP