March 14, 2007	Wednesday	Safar 24, 1428

WASHINGTON: A rare encounter between senior US and Iranian diplomats over the weekend may be a symbolic breakthrough for the long-time foes, but did little to bridge their deep divisions, analysts said.The meeting during a conference on Saturday in Baghdad on Iraq’s future involved the highest-level exchanges between the two nations in four years and raised hopes that escalating crises over Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions could be resolved through diplomacy rather than military confrontation.

Washington’s ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, described his talks as “constructive” and even “jovial” — not a term normally used to illustrate US-Iran dealings during the past 27 years of enmity.

Khalilzad expressed optimism that Saturday’s meeting, which focussed on efforts to end sectarian bloodshed and an Al Qaeda insurgency in Iraq, would lead to another face-to-face parley at the foreign ministers’ level next month.

“That certainly is a possible path for how things could develop from here,” he said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said she would attend the next meeting, probably in Istanbul.

Saturday’s talks were welcomed by foreign policy experts who have been pressing Rice and US President George W. Bush to end their diplomatic boycott of Iran and ally Syria, even though they viewed the talks as having broken no new ground on substantive matters.“The Baghdad meeting was quite useful in changing the understanding and perception of what the US is doing,” said Patrick Clawson, an Iran analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Shibley Telhami of the Brookings Institution agreed that the main success of the conference was that the two sides met and kept their exchanges low-key enough to avoid a blow-up that would torpedo the follow up ministerial meeting.

“Neither side wanted this to be a failed meeting, and it wasn’t. But it also means that nothing else was accomplished,” he said.

The United States went into Saturday’s meeting determined to limit discussions to its allegations that Iran and Syria are providing arms and other support to sectarian militia and anti-US insurgents in Iraq.—AFP