WASHINGTON: The US and Iran finally broke the ice on Monday to hold their first formal talks since Washington broke off diplomatic ties in 1980 during the embassy hostage crisis.
Against a background of renewed international tension, with the US conducting large-scale war games in the Gulf, the two sides met in Baghdad for discussions described by both as "positive". Iran held out the prospect of a further meeting within the next month.
European countries, as well as doves inside the US administration, had been pushing for years for President George Bush to engage in direct diplomacy with Iran. The US ambassador, Ryan Crocker, met his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, for four hours. Previous attempts to hold direct talks had to be abandoned in the face of opposition from hardliners in Tehran and Washington.
The agenda for yesterday’s meeting was strictly confined to Iraq, with no mention of Iran’s nuclear programme, the arrest by Iran of US-Iranian citizens and Tehran’s complaints that the US and Britain already have spy rings inside Iran trying to foment trouble among its ethnic minorities. “The focus of our discussions were Iraq and Iraq only,” Mr Crocker said.
Some of the exchanges were blunt. Mr Crocker said Tehran, which claims it wants a stable Iraq, had to put a stop to the alleged involvement of Iranians in arming and training Iraqi insurgents.
“Iranian actions on the ground have to come into harmony with their described principles,” he said. “Their actions are running at crossed purposes to their stated policy.”
Mr Crocker repeated US allegations that roadside bombs in Iraq, which are proving lethal against US and British armoured vehicles, are being sent from Iran. “I laid out to the Iranians direct, specific concerns about their behaviour in Iraq and their support for militias that are fighting Iraqi and coalition forces,” he said. Mr Qomi, who described the US role in Iraq as that of an occupying force, told the Americans the training of the Iraqi army was proving to be too slow and ineffective and offered to help, an offer Washington is unlikely to take up. “The Islamic Republic of Iran announced its willingness to provide all forms of support including cooperation and arming (the military) with weapons and training,” Mr Qomi told reporters afterwards.
Potentially more significant, Iran proposed what it called a trilateral forum in which the US, Iran and Iraq could meet regularly to discuss security matters. Mr Crocker said he would have to refer the proposal to Washington.
Mr Qomi’s overall assessment was upbeat. In an interview with Iranian state television, he said: “Some problems have been raised and studied and I think this was a positive step ... In the political field, the two sides agreed to support and strengthen the Iraqi government, which was another positive item achieved.”
Although Mr Qomi offered a second round of talks, Mr Crocker said the purpose of the meeting had been to lay out US concerns and that had been achieved. “In terms of what happens next we are going to want to wait and see not what is said next but what happens on the ground, whether we start to see some indications of change of Iranian behaviour,” he said.
The Baghdad meeting took place after an attempt to bring together the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the Iranian foreign minister, Manoucher Mottaki, at a conference at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh failed last month.
The only other face-to-face meeting between the countries was an informal one on the sidelines of an international conference in Baghdad in March.
Mr Crocker and Mr Qomi met in the offices of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki in the heavily fortified Green Zone, as violence continued elsewhere in Iraq, with 24 killed in a truck bomb blast near a Sunni Muslim mosque in Baghdad.
The problems dividing the two countries remain formidable. The Iranian leadership has said it has no intention of backing down over its nuclear programme, which the US claims is aimed at securing a nuclear weapon. Sanctions against Iran are being discussed by the UN.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service
