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US insists on iran syria talks { February 2007 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0843944620070308http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0843944620070308
U.S. will not walk away from talks with Iran on Iraq
Thu Mar 8, 2007 12:50PM EST
By Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States sent on Thursday its clearest signal to date that it is open to bilateral talks with Iran and Syria, saying it will not "walk away" if either approaches to discuss stabilizing Iraq at a neighbors conference this weekend.
"If we are approached over orange juice by the Syrians or the Iranians to discuss an Iraq-related issue that is germane to this topic -- stable, secure, peaceful, democratic Iraq -- we are not going to turn and walk away," David Satterfield, the State Department's Iraq coordinator, told reporters.
However, he said whether or not such talks are held would depend in part on the Syrian and Iranian stance at the Saturday conference in Baghdad, which will gather Iraq's neighbors as well as the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
The United States accuses both Iran and Syria of fomenting the insurgency in Iraq, where violence rages four years after U.S.-led forces invaded the country to topple former dictator Saddam Hussein. About 140,000 U.S. forces remain in Iraq seeking to defeat the insurgency and to restore stability.
The United States, which has no diplomatic relations with Iran, has had diplomatic contacts with Iran in multilateral discussions but it has resisted bilateral talks. The Saturday meeting will provide an occasion for such talks.
Satterfield, who will attend the conference along with outgoing U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, would not say definitively whether U.S. officials would engage with the Iranians or the Syrians in bilateral talks at the conference.
"It depends on how discussions evolve and we are not the only party in those discussions. What the Iranians and the Syrians choose to do is also part and parcel of this," he told reporters.
The U.S. official, who serves as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top adviser on Iraq, said the United States would make clear its desire that Iran and Syria act to quell the violence during the multilateral talks.
Asked what the United States wants the two countries to do, he said: "No arms crossings its border, no contributions to violence, whether that violence is directed against coalition forces or innocent Iraqis, a halt to the provision of training for elements in Iraq who are engaged in fomenting or conducting acts of violence."
© Reuters 2006
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