The Bush administration has extended a temporary suspension of some US sanctions on Iran that were eased to speed relief supplies after a devastating earthquake last December.
The president of the American Iranian Council, Hooshang Amirahmadi, on Tuesday hailed the move as "another (US) gesture of goodwill to Iran" but a State Department official dismissed the decision as "matter of fact, not political."
The decision to renew the suspension, which had been due to expire last month, became public on Tuesday, as the United States faces an increasingly chaotic conflict in Iraq and is looking to neighbouring countries, like Iran, to help calm the situation.
An official Iranian delegation travelled to Iraq last week to try to defuse a stand-off between radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and US troops in the holy Shia city of Najaf.
Iran and the United States have not had formal diplomatic relations since the Iranian revolution when radical students held 52 American hostages for 444 days from 1979-1981.
President George W. Bush, who has branded Iran part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea, eased some sanctions last December 31 so US citizens and non-profit groups could donate money directly to non-governmental organisations working in Iran on reconstruction and relief efforts after an earthquake killed 26,000 people in Bam.
Under the initial 90-day measure, the administration also made it easier for relief groups to bring donated equipment such as satellite telephones and computers into Iran.
In a formal renewal letter, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control said the temporary sanctions easing would be extended for another 90 days, effective March 25.
"It's certainly a gesture (to Iran). The United States didn't have to do it. The emergency in Iran is over," Amirahmadi, a professor and director of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told Reuters.
A State Department official, speaking anonymously, said he did not believe the issue received the kind of high-level attention that normally would occur if the administration was planning to send Iran a meaningful diplomatic signal.
"There's still a need in Iran for stuff to deal with the situation. The humanitarian crisis is still persisting," the official said.
In an interview in January, former national security adviser Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft predicted Bush would extend his decision to ease the sanctions and it would be desirable.
Scowcroft, who advised Bush's father and advocates dialogue with the Islamic state, said he believes the United States and Iran are "moving toward some kind of exchange, but at a glacial rate and neither side is enthusiastic about it."
Amirahmadi said, "The government (in Tehran) wants to work out its problems with the United States."