US and Iran hold rare direct talks on Iraq security

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The United States and Iran are to hold a new round of talks in Iraq on Tuesday about the security situation in the war-torn country in only their second direct encounter in 27 years.

The US will be represented by its ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, while Tehran's envoy Hassan Kazemi Qomi will head the Iranian delegation in the talks which will also be attended by Iraqi officials.

Spokesman for the US mission in Baghdad Philip Reeker said Tuesday's meeting -- the second between the two arch-enemies within two months -- would be strictly "about Iraq."

The United States broke off relations with Iran in 1980, after Islamic revolutionaries seized the US embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days.

The first meeting between the two sides on May 28 did not achieve any major breakthrough and was strictly limited to the security situation in Iraq.

Both sides stuck to their familiar positions, with Tehran calling for US
troops to be pulled out and Washington accusing Iran of stoking the insurgency that is bedevilling Iraq.

The two countries remain at loggerheads over a range of issues including Iran's nuclear programme, which the United States claims is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, an accusation fiercely denied by Tehran.

US forces have frequently accused Iran of arming and training Iraqi militias, allegations denied by Tehran.

Relations have been chilled further by the detention in Iraq by US forces of at least five Iranian officials whom Tehran insists are diplomats, but Washington says are members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard.

Strains have also come from the detention by Tehran of four US-Iranians accused of espionage and harming national security by being linked to alleged US efforts to topple Iran's clerical authorities.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack ruled out raising the issue of the US-Iranians at the talks, saying their "primary focus is on Iraq security."

Tehran claimed that scholars Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh, who were arrested in May, had exposed in television statements a US plot to overthrow Iran's Islamic authorities through a peaceful "soft revolution."

California-based businessman Ali Shakeri has also been detained. Parnaz Azima, a journalist for Radio Free Europe's Persian arm, is technically at liberty but has had her passport confiscated and cannot leave the country.

Asked whether Washington would miss a rare opportunity by not raising the fate of the four at Tuesday's meeting, McCormack said, "I think it is a missed opportunity for the Iranians not to allow these people to leave over the past two months."

Given the acrimonious backdrop, Iraqi lawmakers were divided in their expectations of Tuesday's meeting.

"Nothing much is expected from the US-Iran meeting," said lawmaker Mahmud Othman, a Kurd.

"US wants Iran to keep off Iraq and Iran wants US to leave Iraq. Each side has its own agenda," he said.

"Iraqis are insisting on such meetings because they themselves have failed to solve the problem. But Iraq's problems can be solved only by the Iraqis. They should work together."

Iraq's Shiite leaders, known for their close links with Shiite Iran, said the meeting was a positive step.

"There is a strong will by the three parties to solve the problems and support the Iraqi government," said Humam Hammoudi, MP from the Shiite Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, a party known to be close to Iran.

Shiite MP Abbas al-Bayati said the May 28 meeting had broken the "psychological barrier and the upcoming meeting will put in place a practical framework to help the three parties support the (Iraqi) political process."