Iran, USA talk after 27 years

Bush regimes’ puppet Ryan Crocker and Iranian diplomat Hassan Kazemi talked in the first and formal meeting after 27 years on Monday with a four-hour meeting about Iraqi security.

 

Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi said that the two sides would meet again in less than a month.

 

The talks in the Green Zone offices of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were the first meeting between Iran and USA since relations broke after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the seizure of the U.S. Embassy.

 

Crocker called the meeting “businesslike” and said at “the level of policy and principle, the Iranian position as articulated by the Iranian ambassador was very close to our own.”

 

However, he said: “What we would obviously like to see, and the Iraqis would clearly like to see, is an action by Iran on the ground to bring what it’s actually doing in line with its stated policy.”

 

The Iranian diplomat – formerly a top official in the elite Revolutionary Guards Quds Force – said he had offered to train and equip the Iraqi army and police to create “a new military and security structure” for Iraq.

 

Kazemi said U.S. efforts to rebuild those forces were inadequate to handle the chaos in Iraq, for which he said Washington bore sole responsibility. He said he also offered to provide what assistance Iran could in rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure, which he said had been “demolished by the American invaders.”

 

The United States had no plans to launch a strike against Iran from Iraq, he said. “We are sure that securing progress in this meeting would, without doubt, enhance the bridges of trust between the two countries and create a positive atmosphere” that would help them deal with other issues, Crocker said.

 

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the talks could lead to future meetings, but only if Washington admitted that its Middle East policy had failed.

 

“We are hopeful that Washington’s realistic approach to the current issues of Iraq – by confessing its failed policy in Iraq and the region and by showing a determination to changing the policy – guarantees success of the talks and possible further talks,” Mottaki said.

 

Hoshiyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, said: “I think it is a positive development. We should encourage it and build on it. This is just the beginning of the process.”