US and Iran to hold talks on Iraq

IRAQ: Officials in Tehran and Washington have declared their intention to hold a dialogue on Iraq, signifying a possible end to the boycott of the Islamic Republic imposed by Washington in 1979 after the ousting of the shah.

The secretary of Iran's National Security Council, Ali Larijani, announced that talks would be limited to the Iraq issue and would involve the US ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad. Mr Larijani said the object of the talks would be to "resolve Iraqi issues and to promote the establishment of an independent and free government in Iraq".

Mr Larijani, a conservative close to Iran's spiritual leader and highest authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Tehran had been repeatedly invited to talk by Mr Khalilzad but had only agreed to engage when asked by Abdel Aziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Since SCIRI was founded and funded by Iran, it is likely that he was asked by Tehran to put forward this request to save its face at a time when the clerical regime and US administration are trading threats over Iran's nuclear programme.

Iran, regarded as part of an "axis of evil" by President George Bush, and the US, dubbed the "Great Satan" by Tehran, have a common interest in stabilising Iraq. In the short term they both seek to subdue the Sunni-led insurrection and avert all-out sectarian conflict. The US administration is determined to remove its forces in Iraq ahead of November's congressional elections, while Tehran does not want Iraq's violence to spill over into Iran's troubled Kurdish and Arab minority border regions.

In the long term, Washington and Tehran share the objective of transforming Iraq into a working democracy. On the one hand, this would justify the Bush administration's policy of regime change and, on the other, Iran, the sole Shia state in the Muslim world, could expect Iraq's 60 per cent Shia majority to take power and ally itself with Iran.

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice argued that the dialogue would not involve negotiations and White House spokesman Scott McClellan said there would be no talks on the rift between the US and Iran over its nuclear programme. But analysts suggest that talks on Iraq would automatically embrace other contentious issues and could lead to serious negotiations rather than public posturing over Iran's nuclear ambitions.