New US-Iran Talks Start in Baghdad

New US-Iran Talks Start in Baghdad
Tuesday, July 24, 2007

.
Iran and the United States launched a second round of rare face-to-face talks in Baghdad on Tuesday to pinpoint the root causes of raging violence in the war-torn Iraq... The talks began at 10.15 AM (0615 GMT) at the office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who began the meeting with a brief speech...
Read the rest at FARSnews.com

*********

>>> The Telegraph.co.uk website has this report out... The second round of talks between the US and Iran aimed at bringing stability to Iraq has reportedly been marred by a tense exchange over American allegations that Teheran is fuelling violence... The meeting in Baghdad was closed to the press but an unnamed official has been quoted as saying that the US ambassador clashed with his Iranian counterpart...
Read the rest at link below...
Iraq talks marred by 'US-Iran clash'

>>> The RadioFreeEurope website has this take on the story today... The chief U.S. envoy at talks with Iranian officials in Baghdad today expressed his concern about what he said is Tehran's continuing support for militant activity in Iraq... Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told reporters he made the remarks today during talks with his Iranian counterpart, Hasan Kazemi-Qomi... Crocker said that although Tehran has a stated policy of supporting a stable and democratic Iraq, Washington does not believe it is following that policy on the ground... Crocker said that in the two months since the envoys' last talks, militant-related activity in Iraq attributed to Iran has increased, not decreased.
Read the rest at link below...
U.S. Envoy Says Iranian Support For Iraqi Militants Increasing

>>> KGAN.com reports...
U.S. ambassador says security subcommittee to be set up with Iran and Iraq

.

********************
Iran Should Reconcile Actions with Talk, U.S. Iraq Envoy Says
U.S., Iran, Iraq to establish subcommittee on security issues
Written by David Shelby

USINFO Staff Writer

Washington- The United States would welcome Iran’s bringing its practices in line with its stated policy of supporting a stable and democratic Iraq, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said July 24.

The ambassador spoke to journalists in Baghdad, Iraq, shortly after a trilateral meeting to discuss Iraq’s security with the Iranian envoy to Iraq and senior Iraqi officials.

Crocker said that Iran’s stated policy on Iraq is in line with the United States’ policy and in keeping with Iran’s national interests. Nevertheless, he said, the United States and multinational forces have ample evidence from people in custody and from seized weapons shipments to indicate that Iranian support for illegal militia activity has increased over the two months since Crocker's previous meeting with the Iranian ambassador in May.

Crocker said the measure of success for the trilateral talks should be results on the ground, not promises or statements of principle, and he said the results to date have been disappointing. (See related article.)

Nevertheless, he said, the United States is not prepared to abandon the dialogue. He said he and the Iranian ambassador discussed the possibility of establishing a security subcommittee at the expert level to address the problem of violent militias, the threat from al-Qaida and issues of border security. If Iran is serious about supporting Iraqi security, he said, the subcommittee would be a mechanism to demonstrate that.

Crocker’s May 28 meeting with the Iranian ambassador was the first official high-level meeting between Iranian and U.S. officials since the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran during Iran’s 1979 revolution.

For more information on U.S. policies, see Iraq Update.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov/)

*******************

More to come...
AubreyJ.........