WASHINGTON – Some Iranian human rights activists said yesterday that a new State Department report chronicling efforts to promote democracy and human rights abroad misrepresents American policy to effect change in the Islamic republic.

Released yesterday, Foggy Bottom’s annual report, “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: the Record 2004-2005,” touts a policy of persuading allies to condition improved trade and ties with Iran to specific improvements on human rights.

Less than a month after President Bush reaffirmed America’s commitment to a European-led negotiations in which Iran is being offered increased trade and technology in exchange only for the Islamic republic’s commitment to dismantle its nuclear program, the State Department report reads, “The U.S. human rights and democracy strategy for Iran centers on urging friends and allies to condition improvements in their bilateral and trade relations with Iran on positive changes in Iran’s human rights policies and other areas of concern.”

To a New York-based Iranian human rights activist, Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, the stance of yesterday’s report, identical to last year’s edition, fails to reflect reality.

“This is the first I’ve heard of the State Department conditioning improved trade or ties on human rights,” she said. “The real policy for America now is about the nukes.” Ms. Zand-Bonazzi, who became active in supporting Iran’s democratic opposition after the authorities in her home country arrested her father and made him recant crimes against the state on national television, added, “Why is America making the same mistake it made with Iraq, which was to focus on proliferation at the exclusion of human rights, in Iran?”

Another activist, Roya Boroumand, said that the problem is that America has supported secretive E.U. negotiation on human rights with Iran that have yielded no results for the Iranian people. “Such dialogue needs visibility. In what specific areas is the Iranian government violating its people’s human rights? What specific improvements should be required for trade improvements? Carrots should be conditioned on specific improvements that can be measured,” Ms. Boroumand said.

Ms. Boroumand and her sister run a foundation here dedicated to monitoring Iranian human rights abuses. It is named for their father, who was assassinated by Iranian Revolutionary Guard operatives in Paris in 1991. Ms. Boroumand added that America should demand the Iranian government allow any Iranian party or individual to run for elected office.

The report’s section on Iran highlights recent American statements from the president as well as other senior officials condemning Iranian crackdowns on press freedom and other political matters. It also says American policy is to raise concerns about Iranian human rights abuses in international forums and the United Nations.

But in the last two years, American policy has been inconsistent. For example, only the State Department spokesman last February condemned the exclusion of most of the so-called reform candidates from running for Parliament, a decision that has empowered Iranian hard-liners in the government.

Asked for comment about the American policy, a spokesman for the British embassy in Washington told The New York Sun that his country’s “engagement with Iran is conditional.” The spokesman went on to say, “The U.K. position is that Iran’s record on human rights is poor and we, too, want to keep the spotlight on it. Human rights is a key element of our relationship with Iran, we raise it bilaterally. We are especially concerned about Iran’s use of the death penalty, especially including the execution of juveniles, and freedom of expression in Iran, including the number of recent arrests of journalists. The European Union’s human rights dialogue with Iran, to which we are a major contributor, enables us to encourage reform and raise individual cases of concern.”

Nonetheless, American officials and diplomatic sources point out that the major British, French, and German diplomatic initiative on Iranian nuclear weapons does not condition any improvements in relations to Iranian improvements on human rights.

The Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, Tom Malinowski, said in an interview yesterday that he thought human rights should be a higher priority for the Europeans in particular. “If there is a policy there, a clear one, I don’t know what it is,” he said. “Assuming there is an acceptable deal on the nuclear issue, how far would the United States be prepared to reward Iran?”

A former Pentagon Iran analyst and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Rubin, was particularly critical of the language in the new human rights report. “If this is the American policy, then Secretary Rice should say these things. Instead she did not even mention terrorism when she announced America’s renewed support for the European negotiations. She did not mention democracy once.”

Mr. Rubin said that because America currently lacks a coherent Iran policy, human rights issues are often relegated to a lower priority than they should be. “For five years we had our interests represented by the Swiss ambassador in Tehran. He could not name a single dissident with which he met.”