Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Tuesday accused the United States of steering the world along a "frightening" path towards war in its fight against terrorism.

"We live in a very frightening situation today. In the course of world history, we have never witnessed war being promoted so much," Khatami told a news conference on the second day of a visit here.

"Even in the course of the two world wars and the very difficult era of the Cold War, never has such an environment of war been created in the world by the US and the US administration.

"We are concerned about such a situation. Our world today can by no means accept military challenges especially when such challenges are initiated by a superpower with great military power," he said.

US President George W Bush has named Iran as part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, and his administration is reportedly planning possible military action to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Khatami said that while terrorism was a "very horrendous and dangerous phenomena", US military actions in the aftermath of last year's terror attacks were misguided.

"Terror is a global issue and the entire world should be mobilised against it... but the war environment created today is very worrying," he said.

Roots of terrorism

"The behaviour of the US today is neither in the interest of the US nor of the world... today there are great threats against various nations and governments initiated by the US administration and in the long-term. this is a concern to all of us."

The Iranian leader said the United Nations should lead the anti-terror war to remove the roots of terrorism, which he named as prejudice, discrimination, national humility and violation of human rights.

"I have proposed a coalition of peace based on justice against the US suggestion of a coalition of war ... we should first have a good definition of terror and terrorism and then begin a basic campaign against it," he said. AFP