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Rice "certain" US, Iran will hold talks on Iraq
AFP
WASHINGTON
Petroleumworld.com 03 25 06US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday she was "quite certain" that US officials would hold direct talks with Iran on the turmoil in Iraq, but could not say when.
A week after Iran moved to take up a US offer of talks on Iraq, Rice and other officials reported no progress in organizing the meetings between the US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Iranians.
But the chief US diplomat was confident the two sides would hold the discussions, which analysts have said could represent a breakthrough toward melting a generation of animosity between the countries.
"I'm quite certain that at some point they will meet," Rice told reporters at a news conference here with visting Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez.
Rice authorized Khalilzad last year to reach out to the Iranians for direct talks, but only about specific issues relating to US concerns that Tehran was stirring up trouble in neighboring Iraq.
"In this narrow set of issues about security in places where we find ourselves in a sense on their border, it's important that we not have any miscommunication or misinformation," she said Friday.
"And so it's important that we have a chance to talk about our concerns," Rice said. But she gave no sense of urgency, saying Khalilzad's authority "has been there for a while. And the issues are not going to go away."
US officials have stressed that any talks would be totally separate from US efforts to rein in Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program.
- 03/24/2006 16:15 - AFPCopyright © 1994-2006 Agence France-Presse. All Rights Reserved.
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