(PTI): Iran’s Foreign Ministry denies a report claiming that Iranian and US officials held separate talks on the margins of an Afghan confab in Moscow.

An unnamed source in the ministry told IRNA that the recent report released by the British weekly Sunday Times regarding a meeting between Tehran and Washington’s representatives in Russia, is entirely fabricated.

“The Iranian delegation participatingin the Afghanistan conference in Moscow was not tasked on this subject and no meeting was held,” the source pointed out.

“Iranian and US officials have held their first talks about ending the war in Afghanistan amid signs that President Barack Obama’s efforts to thaw relations with Tehran are paying off,” Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

The weekly paper added, “While television cameras focused on Mr. Obama in Washington during the unveiling of his strategy for Afghanistan at the weekend, US and Iranian diplomats were holding a remarkable meeting in Moscow.”

US, Iranian, Pakistani and Afghan diplomats as well as the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon attended a conference about Afghanistan in Moscow on Sunday.

The officials are also scheduled to meet up for a one-day UN conference on the future of Afghanistan in The Hague on March 31.

The Hague meeting is to discuss security and reconstruction in the war-battered country, where the Taliban has stepped up it insurgent attacks on the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) as well as Afghan troops.

Tehran and Washington cut diplomatic ties in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution; but in a video message marking the Iranian New Year, Obama on March 20 proposed an end to three decades of animosity in a departure from the tough line adopted by his predecessor George W. Bush.