Haaretz
Adar 11, 5767
President Bashar al-Assad
met Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Najjar on Sunday to discuss military
links between the two countries, the official Syrian news agency said.
Najjar is the latest high-level Iranian official to visit Syria,
which has been reinforcing ties with Tehran as the two countries come
under pressure from the United States.
"The meeting between the
president and a delegation headed by Najjar discussed the cooperation
between the Syrian Arab Army and the Iranian army and ways to strengthen
friendship between the two sides," the SANA agency said.
The two
countries support the Lebanese movement Hezbollah and the Palestinian
group Hamas and have links to a number of players in Iraq.
Western
diplomats in Damascus say Syria has been improving its arsenal, especially
after last year's war between Hezbollah and Israel. Iran has been
upgrading its military capability, with the United States not ruling out
the use of force to stop its nuclear program.
Iran and Syria, which
are under U.S. sanctions, attended a conference in Baghdad along with the
United States on Saturday to discuss stopping violence in
Iraq.
Iranian Vice President Parviz Davoudi was in Damascus last
week and Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari is due to visit Tehran in a
few days.
U.S., Iran trade accusations in direct talks to ease
Iraq violence
In the first direct, high-level contact among United
States, Iranian and Syrian representatives since the Iraq war began, U.S.
and Iranian envoys traded harsh words and blamed each other for the crisis
in Iraq at a one-day international conference that some hoped would help
end their 27-year diplomatic freeze.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki opened the conference Saturday with an appeal for all
participants to help ease his country's plight and "prevent the violent
conflict here from spilling over into the entire Middle East."
But
the conference underscored the wide gulf between American and Iranian
views over the nature of the crisis and the ways to end it.
During
the talks, U.S. envoy David Satterfield pointed to his briefcase which he
said contained documents proving Iran was arming Shi'ite Muslim militias
in Iraq.
"Your accusations are merely a cover for your failures in
Iraq," Iran's chief envoy Abbas Araghchi shot back, according to an
official familiar to the discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to release the information.
The U.S.
ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said that American delegates
exchanged views with the Iranians "directly and in the presence of others"
during talks, which he described as "constructive and
businesslike."
"Nobody was pounding the table," he
added.
But Labid Abbawi, a senior Iraqi Foreign Ministry official
who attended the meeting, confirmed that an argument broke out between the
Iranian and American envoys. He would not elaborate.
Before the
talks, U.S. officials said the Baghdad conference would allow all sides to
spell out their positions frankly and pave the way for more substantive
discussions on resolving the Iraq crisis.
Al-Maliki, a Shi'ite,
appealed for international help to sever networks aiding extremists and
warned that Iraq's growing sectarian bloodshed could spill across the
Middle East.
Khalilzad also urged nations bordering Iraq - which
include Syria and Iran - to increase their assistance to al-Maliki's
government, saying "the future of Iraq and the Middle East is the defining
issue of our time."
"[Iraq] needs support in this battle that not
only threatens Iraq but will spill over to all countries in the region,"
al-Maliki said.
Al-Maliki appealed for help in stopping financial
support, weapon pipelines and "religious cover" for the relentless attacks
of car bombings, killings and other attacks that have pitted Iraq's Sunnis
against majority Shi'ites.
Khalilzad sounded hopeful for similar
face-to-face talks during a planned meeting of top diplomats from Iraq's
Middle East neighbors and others, including Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice.
"That certainly is a possible path for how things could
develop from here," Khalilzad said.
Rice has pledged to attend such
a session on Iraqi security, which probably would take place next month in
Turkey.
Underscoring the security crisis, at least two mortar
shells exploded near the Foreign Ministry where the talks were held but
caused no casualties. A suicide car bomber also killed 20 people in the
Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City.
The participants at the
talks included all of Iraq's neighbors - Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait - as well as the U.S., Russia, France, Britain,
China, Bahrain, Egypt, the United Nations, the Organization of the Islamic
Conference and the Arab League.
At a news conference after the
meeting, Araghchi restated Tehran's demands for a clear timetable for the
withdrawal of U.S.-led forces, which he insisted had made Iraq a magnet
for extremists from across the Muslim world.
"For the sake of peace
and stability in Iraq ... we need a timetable for the withdrawal of
foreign forces," said Araghchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister for legal
and international affairs.
"Violence in Iraq is good for no country
in the region," he said. "Security of Iraq is our security and stability
in Iraq is a necessity for peace and security in the
region."
Araghchi said he had no face-to-face, private talks with
Khalilzad and that the discussions were "within the framework of the
meeting." He spoke of "very good interaction by all the
delegations."
Khalilzad, too, called the meeting "a first
step."
"The discussions were limited and focused on Iraq and I
don't want to speculate after that," said the Afghan-born Khalilzad, who
greeted Araghchi in the Persian language.
He told reporters in a
conference call after the session that he took it as a good sign that Iran
and Syria both pledged support for a stable Iraq, including reconciliation
among Iraq's factions.
"I think one has to be cautious about
exaggerating the impact of what has happened, but what has happened in my
view cannot be dismissed," Khalilzad said. "It was a good
meeting."
Nevertheless, the discussions illustrated the deep
differences between Tehran and Washington, although each insists that
full-scale civil war is in neither country's interest.
"Regarding
security, we have channels that we can put to use," Araghchi told The
Associated Press. "We are ready for any help we can give to
Iraq."
Reza Amiri, a senior official at the Iranian Foreign
Ministry, dismissed American claims that Tehran was destabilizing Iraq by
arming Shi'ite militias.
The U.S. military has insisted that
Iranian weapons, including a new generation of powerful roadside bombs,
have killed more than 170 U.S. and coalition troops here since
mid-2004.
"They're lying because it is just not true," Amiri told AP.
"Iraq's borders with Iran are the most secure of Iraqi borders. The Iraqi
government has not even once said Iran is interfering in its
affairs."
But Amiri said Saturday's conference was "very positive"
because "everyone promised to cooperate with each other and to control the
borders."
The delegates proposed an "expanded" follow-up meeting,
which could include the G-8 nations and others, in Istanbul, Turkey, next
month. Iraqi officials, however, say they will urge that the next meeting
take place again in Baghdad.
For Iran, opening more direct contacts
with Washington could help promote their shared interests in preventing
full-scale war between Sunnis and Shi'ites. Iran has influence among
Shi'ite political parties with ties to militias.
"Security of Iraq
is our security and stability in Iraq is a necessity for peace and
security in the region," Araghchi said at the news conference.
The
Baghdad talks come as the U.S. administration has toughened its rhetoric
on Iran and flexed its muscles at the UN over Tehran's disputed nuclear
program. The tough talk has been accompanied by the arrival of two U.S.
carrier battle groups near the Iranian shores in the Persian
Gulf.
Iranians increasingly fear that a U.S. attack is imminent
despite American insistence to the contrary.
The U.S. and Iran
severed diplomatic ties after Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran following the 1979 Islamic revolution. In the late 1990s, U.S. and
Iranian envoys were part of an eight-nation group studying Afghanistan's
troubles under the Taliban, and both nations took part in meetings to
establish an interim Afghan government after the Taliban's fall in
2001.
In 2000, a four-member U.S. congressional delegation met with
Iran's parliament speaker, Mehdi Karroubi, and others for informal talks
during a worldwide gathering of lawmakers in New York.
Iranian
analyst Saeid Leylaz said the Baghdad conference would be a non-starter if
it's not followed by a one-on-one dialogue between Washington and
Tehran.
"How can you expect us to talk to them about Iraq's
security without Iran's security being part of the talks?" said
Leylaz.
He said only a "constructive and strategic dialogue between
Tehran and Washington" would resolve the Iraq problem.
"Tehran
could help temporarily in Iraq," said Leylaz, "but for an everlasting
solution, talks should comprise of security guarantees for the whole
region."
"The Americans must understand the question of security is
a matter of life and death for Iran," he said. "And no where is that
security as vital for Iran as on its borders with Iraq."