The US said ambassador-level talks with Iran that began yesterday in Baghdad will focus solely on the situation in Iraq despite rising tensions over American-Iranians detained by Tehran and Iranians held in US custody in Iraq.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki opened the meeting with a statement welcoming the attendants at his headquarters in the heavily fortified Green Zone, then the Iraqi leader left the room, according to an official in his office, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. Iraqi state TV also reported that the meeting had begun.
The detention of four American-Iranians in Iran has deepened tensions between Washington and Tehran, whose relations were already strained over Iran's controversial nuclear program and its support for radical militant groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas and by US military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf.
But US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Monday that Iraq was the only issue on the agenda.
"This is an opportunity for direct engagement on issues solely related to Iraq," US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington on Monday. "We are going to raise the need for Iran to match its actions with its words in seeking strategic stability in Iraq."
McCormack said Iran has not taken any steps to help bring about a stable Iraq, a goal he said Iran professes to share with the US.
"We'll see, if, as a result of these engagements, they will change their behavior."
The first round of Iran-US talks, on May 28 in Baghdad, broke a 27-year diplomatic freeze following the 1979 Islamic Revolution and US Embassy takeover in Tehran.
Iran had said this second round would happen last month, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other US officials delayed because Iran had not scaled back what Washington alleges is a concerted effort to arm militants and harm US troops in Iraq.
Ambassador Ryan Crocker was leading the US side. His counterpart was Hasan Kazemi Qomi, Iran's envoy to Iraq.
An Iraqi delegation led by a top official also was attending the talks, according to Labeed Abawi, a senior official at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. He declined to identify the official.
"What we, as Iraqis, hope to achieve is to build confidence between the two sides," Abawi said. "There are facts on the ground, and they need to be dealt with."
McCormack said he expected Iran to bring up the case of five Iranians held in US custody in Iraq and accused of supporting insurgents. Crocker would not raise US concerns about the four Iranian-Americans held for espionage, he said.
Washington has called for their release and says the charges are false.
"No, this meeting is about Iraq," McCormack said when asked specifically about the case of one of the four, Haleh Esfandiari of the Washington-based Wood-row Wilson International Center for Scholars. "We've taken lots of opportunities via the Swiss to raise the case of Haleh Esfandiari as well as other American citizens in Iran. That is being handled in a separate channel."
Iran has called for the release of the five Iranians, whom the US has said are the operations chief and members of Iran's elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants. Iran says they are diplomats who were legally in Iraq.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in