Iran to support initiatives guaranteeing Iraqi security (Roundup)

Mar 11, 2007, 12:47 GMT

Tehran - Iran is prepared to support all initiatives which would guarantee security and stability in Iraq, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said on Sunday, a day after a landmark Baghdad conference which saw the participation of Iran, Syria and the United States.

'We will fully support whatever plan or initiative guaranteeing security and stability in Iraq and therefore consider the Baghdad conference as an important step for supporting the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki,' Hosseini said in his weekly press conference.

'We hope that this conference will be a prologue for a conference at foreign ministry level,' Hosseini added.

The spokesman however refrained to say whether Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki would be ready to talk to his US counterpart Condoleezza Rice were such a ministry-level meeting to take place.

He said it was premature to talk about a Rice-Mottaki meeting and the probability would be decided when the time was ripe.

While rejecting any direct talks having been held between Iran and the United States in Baghdad, Hosseini reiterated that Iran was in favour of a timetable for the withdrawal of the US-led coalition forces from Iraq, leaving all state and security affairs into the hands of the Iraq government and decisively fighting terrorism 'however without discrimination.'

The spokesman was referring to alleged US cooperation with the Iranian rebel group People's Mujaheddin, which is still based in Iraq. Tehran and also some Western countries have classified the group as a terrorist organization.

Hosseini said that Iran would also be ready to cooperate with Iraq in covering the energy needs of the war-torn country.

Tehran had earlier Sunday termed the international conference on Iraq's security held in Baghdad the previous day as 'serious and constructive.'

'The conference realised its main aim which was serious support for the Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, and prepared grounds for future talks at (foreign) minister level,' Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told news network Khabar.

A second conference at foreign minister level is scheduled to be held next month in Istanbul.

Araqchi, who represented Tehran at the conference, said that Iran entered the conference 'with a spirit of understanding' and expressed its concern over the situation in Iraq.

The deputy minister denied any direct talks in Baghdad with representatives of Iran's political arch-foe the United States and said the two sides only talked within the session, and only about Iraq.

He added there had been 'heated' discussions with the US side over the six Iranian diplomats detained by American forces in Iraq. Tehran says the diplomatic immunity of the Iranian detainees should be respected but the US accuses them of being agents, and not diplomats.