TEHRAN -- A prominent cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi here Friday, said that Iran's proponents of diplomatic relations between Tehran and Washington had shamed themselves into retracting their calls in the wake of the U.S. recent anti-Iran rhetoric.

"Now that American hypocrisy has become evident those who were seeing resumption of ties with the U.S. as an inevitable requirement cannot raise up their heads among the people because of the shame they feel," he told worshipers before the Friday prayers sermon.

"Now they are forced to issue statements (to say that) we must not forge ties with America," The cleric, a top theologian at the Qom Seminary, added.

Iranians of all political hues have strongly denounced President George W. Bush's branding of Iran as part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea.

"They have no faith in God and resurrection those who have clandestine relations with God's enemies," IRNA quoted Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi as saying.

He cited verses from the Holy Quran which says, "God tells His Prophet (Mohammad) that thou wilt never find people who both believe in God and resurrection and start friendship with God's enemies at the same time."

"When they (the infidels) are asked why they forge ties with enemies of God, they say they are afraid of the calamity which may afflict them," He went on to say.

"But the Quran says that they lie and that they do this out of concern for their own interests," the ayatollah added.

Iran has had no diplomatic relations with the U.S. which severed its ties after the Students Following the Imam's Line' stormed the American Embassy in Tehran, known as Den of Spies', in 1979 and took its staff hostage for 444 days.

U.S. self-centered policies and its propensity to act as it wishes has provoked an international frustration, notably among its European allies, leading to blunt criticism.