Iran: no intention to meet with U.S. at next Iraq conference

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-04-08 19:25

Iran said on Sunday that it had no intention to meet with U.S. officials at the upcoming round of an international conference on Iraqi security, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini voiced the position just one day after Iraq declared its neighboring countries, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and some industrialized countries would hold a new round of the conference in Egypt in early May, IRNA said.

"Talks with the U.S. is not on our agenda," Hosseini was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, the spokesman insist the exact venue of meeting has not been decided, saying "consultations are currently under way on the date and venue of the conference, no place has been fixed yet. "

"We believe it should be held in Baghdad," he added.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Saturday that his government had agreed to hold a ministerial meeting between its neighboring countries and major world nations in Egypt in early May.

The meeting in Egypt would aim to engage Iraq's Arab neighbors and the international community constructively in helping the Iraqi government restore stability and reconstruction, Zebari told reporters in Baghdad.

On March 10, an ambassador-level meeting was held in Baghdad on the security situation in Iraq, in which American officials held rare direct talks with their foes Iranian and Syrian officials.



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