SICP recursive process vs iterative process: using a recursive procedure to generate an iterative process

in SICP Section 1.2.1 The author giving such a code example below to show how to using iterative process to solve the factorial problem:

(define (factorial n)
  (fact-iter 1 1 n))
(define (fact-iter product counter max-count)
  (if (> counter max-count)
      product
      (fact-iter (* counter product)
                 (+ counter 1)
                 max-count)))

and say "It may seem disturbing that we refer to a recursive procedure such as fact-iter as generating an iterative process.However, the process really is iterative: Its state is captured completely by its three state variables, and an interpreter need keep track of only three variables in order to execute the process."

I don't understand what the author mean. What's the difference between a recursive procedure and a recursive process? And why did he say the recursive procedure below generating an iterative process?