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Washington and Tehran to hold first substantial talks in 27 years
AFP / Ali Al-Saadi
A picture combo shows Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki (L) and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (R) delivering their respective addresses at a press conference held at the international conference on Iraq, 04 May 2007 in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. (AFP/File/Ali Al-Saadi)
By Sylvie Lanteaume
AFP
WASHINGTON
Petroleumworld.com 05 28 07
Washington and Tehran open their first substantial talks in 27 years in Baghdad on Monday, with both countries setting modest goals and limiting discussions to ways to quell the chaos in Iraq.
US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker is set to meet Iranian ambassador Hassan Kazemi in the highest-level official bilateral talks between the two sides since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The United States and Iran broke off diplomatic relations in 1980 after radical students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the talks would be held "in Baghdad, at an Iraqi government facility," giving no further details for security reasons.
An Iraqi representative will join them at the start of the talks, which will then continue behind closed doors. There will be no official statement, but Crocker said there could be a press conference at the US embassy after the event.
The meeting follows a brief encounter between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, on May 4 at a conference on Iraq held at the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.
"Bad relations between the two countries does not serve Iraq, and Iraq has paid the price for the tension between the two countries," said Ali al-Dabbagh, spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
"We don't want Iraq to be an arena for fighting between the two sides," Dabbagh told reporters Wednesday.
Washington accuses Tehran of fomenting violence by arming and training radical Shiite militias. Tehran in turn says that peace will not be restored in Iraq until US forces leave.
Washington also accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, demands Tehran freeze its uranium enrichment operations, and has not ruled out military strikes to thwart Iran's nuclear drive. Iran says its atomic drive is peaceful and that it has every right to the full fuel cycle.
Iran's nuclear program however is not on the agenda for Monday's talks.
"These talks will not affect our nuclear issue, because we are not interested," Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, deputy head of the Iran's National Security Council, told ISNA news agency on Sunday.
"The talks will solely focus on the stability and security of Iraq as it has been requested by Iraqi people and government," Fazli said.
Casey confirmed only Iraq would be on the agenda. "It's not a forum for discussion about other events."
Iran on Sunday accused Washington of running spy networks aimed at carrying out "sabotage" operations in its sensitive border provinces in western, southwestern and central Iran, according to Iran's state media, possibly darkening the atmosphere in Monday's talks.
Iran's intelligence ministry had on Saturday announced it had broken up spy networks led by coalition forces in Iraq, but the comments were the first time the United States has been directly accused.
The new allegations come at a time when Iran is also charging the United States of seeking to carry out a "Velvet Revolution" by peacefully toppling the Islamic authorities through various initiatives.
Despite the strong symbolism, the Baghdad meeting will likely yield limited results, said Anthony Cordesman, with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think-tank.
"Iran's position on meeting with the US to talk about Iraq has been hostile beyond the usual standards of pre-conference posturing and leverage," said Cordesman.
Cordesman said the recent arrest in Iran of at least three Iranian-American researchers accused of working to undermine the Islamic regime were "a grim warning that dialogue with this Iranian government may have very little near-term benefits."
US forces are also holding five Iranians arrested on January 11 in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil. Iran says the men are diplomats, but US officials suspect they are involved in supplying advanced roadside bombs to Iraqi insurgents to use against US forces.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week that Tehran would merely use the Baghdad talks to remind Washington of its "occupiers' duty" in Iraq.
AFP 27 1955 GMT 05 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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