WASHINGTON (AP):

The Bush administration is changing course on Iran in its final months. The hope is that engagement can jolt a stagnant effort to resolve worries about Tehran's disputed nuclear programme where war drums could not.

The United States has shifted from its long-standing confrontational policy of isolating Iran in favour of a diplomatic approach that resembles the direction taken to get North Korea to give up its atomic arms.

The administration will, for the first time, send a senior envoy to talks with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. Until the weekend meeting in Switzerland, the United States has insisted it would not speak with the Iranians until they end the suspect activities.

In addition, the administration is floating a proposal to open a de facto US Embassy in Tehran. US diplomats would go to Iran for the first time in almost 30 years, since the countries broke relations after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Neither move guarantees results. There remain hawks who oppose the tactical switch, still underpinned by broad penalties against Iran and President George W. Bush's refusal to rule out any option, including force, to keep Iran from developing the bomb.

Creative ideas needed

But officials who have championed these separate but parallel drives say new, creative ideas must be tried if the threat posed by Iran is to be contained or eliminated by the end of Bush's second term in January.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her new third-in-command at the State Department, William Burns, have been among the most vocal proponents of the new direction, officials say. Burns will represent the United States at Saturday's meeting with Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili in Geneva.