TEHRAN, May 26 (Xinhuanet) -- A top Iranian official slammed the United States on Thursday for encouraging regime change in Iran by provoking ethnic and racial strifes, the official IRNA news agency reported.

    "The United States is trying to deviate the young generation (of Iran) from ethics and aspirations of the Islamic Revolution, and they have resorted to all means to provoke unrest in the country,"Information Minister Ali Younesi was quoted as saying.

    On April 15, a letter, which was said to be written by Iran's former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi to promote a coercive migration of Arabs in the southwestern province of Khuzestan,touched off riots in the provincial capital of Ahvaz.

    Iran disclaimed the letter and reined in the unrest, claiming "some foreign agents" were behind the incident.

    US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on April 11 that Washington had earmarked 3 million US dollars to "promote democracy in Iran," a move criticized by Tehran as "interfering in Iran's internal affairs."

    Younesi said the West, represented by Washington, has been trying to politicize the existing ethnic and racial issues in Iran and distort the image of the Islamic government.

    "US officials should know that igniting a hardware revolution ora war in Iran will only cause them to lose their target and willalso turn the country into a big cemetery for their soldiers,"Younesi warned.

    The minister said Washington, by taking hostile and aggressive measures against Iran, pursued to strengthen its grip on the Middle East.

    "The Middle East, due to its strategic situation, has always been considered as a center for provoking rifts among political andethnic disputes," Younesi said.

    "The United States is preparing the ground for a kind of compromising Islam to dominate the Persian Gulf region and the Middle East in a bid to attain its own economic and hegemonic goals," he added.

    Iran and the United States have become hostile to each other since the outbreak of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

    The United States accuses Iran of threatening the world peace by developing nuclear weapons and sponsoring terrorists, labeling the Islamic Republic as part of "the axis of evil".

    In return, Iran terms Washington as enemy of the Islam. Enditem