US presses Iran in landmark talks on Iraq chaos

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The United States told Iran on Monday to stop supporting violent militias in war-ravaged Iraq, during the highest-level direct official talks between the arch-foes in 27 years.

US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said he met Iranian ambassador Hassan Kazemi for four hours in Baghdad in the first such high-level encounter since the countries severed diplomatic relations in 1980.

Crocker said he had insisted that Iran must back up its claimed support for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's beleaguered government by cutting off support for armed factions fighting in Iraq.

"The purpose of our efforts in this meeting was not to build a legal case -- presumably the Iranians know what they were doing -- our point was simply to say we know as well, this is dangerous for Iraq," he said.

"What we underscored to the Iranians was that beyond principle there is practice," he said. "The Iranian actions on the ground have to come into harmony with their principles."

He said the Iranians proposed the creation of a trilateral security commission involving Iraqis and US representatives -- a suggestion Crocker dismissed.

"What we are doing today effectively was a security committee because on the level of policy there isn't a great deal to argue about."

Crocker said the Iranians did not address US complaints and had only complained in general terms about the occupation of Iraq by US troops and said there had not been enough US effort to train up Iraqi security forces.

There had been little expectation that the envoys would see eye-to-eye over the Iraq crisis, with Iran's foreign ministry on the eve of the talks accusing US agents of sponsoring subversives in its border provinces.

Washington has dismissed similar accusations in the past, but they serve to underline the chill that still grips Iranian-American relations a quarter of a century after US embassy diplomats were held hostage for 444 days.

"There are important points of agreement between the two parties and the Iraqi government that we are seeking to develop," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh saiud before the talks ended.

Washington accuses Iran's Revolutionary Guards of supplying armed groups with armour-piercing roadside bombs that have been blamed for the deaths of hundreds of the 3,455 American troops killed in the conflict.

US forces are holding seven alleged Revolutionary Guards agents detained in Iraq on suspicion of subversion, while Tehran furiously insists that they are diplomats. Crocker said this topic did not come up.

Shiite-dominated Iran says the US-led occupation force is the cause of the problems and that it is also allowing anti-Iranian rebels to use Iraq as a base.

Both countries are also at loggerheads over Iran's nuclear drive but the issue was ruled off the agenda in Monday's talks.

 

 

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