Rice sceptical of talks with Iran, Syria over Iraq

Dec 9, 2006, 0:00 GMT

Washington - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was sceptical Friday of a bipartisan panel's recommendation that the United States engage Iran and Syria to persuade them to help stop the spiralling violence in Iraq.

Rice stuck with US President George W Bush's position that the United States will not hold talks with Iran until it suspends uranium enrichment, and said Tehran and Damascus were capable of taking steps to reduce bloodshed in Iraq without dialogue with Washington.

'I have to believe that, if the assumption is that Iran does not want an unstable Iraq for whatever reason, or that Syria does not want an unstable Iraq, that they will act on that because it's in their interests to do so,' Rice said during a press conference with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Rice met with Steinmeier two days after the Iraq Study Group co- chaired by former secretary of state James Baker III and former congressman Lee Hamilton blamed the two countries for fomenting violence in Iraq. Baker said the Bush administration had to be willing to hold discussions with 'enemies' in order to address crucial US interests and warned that Iraq was headed toward chaos.

Rice acknowledged that many of the report's findings were interesting, but stopped short of endorsing any recommendations as the Bush administration reviews its policy in Iraq.

Steinmeier did not say whether Germany, which opposed the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, will play a greater diplomatic role in trying to help the United States resolve the conflict.

'It's far too early for the American administration to have developed a final position on this report and, therefore, consider our meeting and our exchange here today a friendly exchange of views,' he said through a translator.