Iran 'cannot solve Iraq crisis alone'

Iran has ended negotiations with the United States about how to bring calm to Iraq because they were going nowhere, Iran’s foreign minister said tonight, in a rare acknowledgement of official talks with Washington.

But Kamal Kharrazi indicated that Iran was positively responding to US demands through Switzerland, which looks after American interests, to help improve security in Iraq.

“Previously, we had dialogue” about Iraq, Kharrazi told reporters. “Currently it has stopped because we felt we were going nowhere. The Americans give promises but don’t keep their promises.

"Currently, they (Americans) are taking a wrong path.”

He gave no details about the discussions, such as who was involved in the talks from each side or where they took place. However, he indicated all channels had not been severed.

“There has been a lot of correspondence with the US about Iraq (through the Swiss Embassy).

"Naturally, there are such requests from the US that we help improve the situation in Iraq, and we are making efforts in this regard,” he said.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declined to answer directly the question of whether the US asked Iranian officials to help calm the situation in southern Iraq involving their Shiite brethren.

He said Washington has been concerned about some Iranian actions in Iraq.

If the Iranians “help stabilise the situation, that would be good. If they don’t, that would not be good,” he said.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency reported today that a top Iranian Foreign Ministry official, Hossein Sadeghi, has been dispatched to Iraq for consultations with members of Iraq’s US-appointed Governing Council and with Iraqi clerics.

Sadeghi’s Iraq visit is believed to be in response to Washington’s demand that Tehran help end the upsurge in violence there.

The United States broke ties with Iran following the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 after Washington gave refuge to the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was toppled during the 1979 Islamic revolution that brought clerics to power.

Militant students held 52 Americans hostage in protest for 444 days.

Since then, relations have been frosty. In 2002, President George Bush listed Iran as part of an ”axis of evil” along with Iraq and North Korea.

Currently, the two are at odds over Iran’s nuclear programme. Washington suspects Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, while Iran insists it only wants nuclear reactors to meet energy demands.

Kharrazi said Iran was willing to help improve the security situation in Iraq, but gave no indication it was trying to resume talks.

Iran “is making its utmost efforts to help resolve the situation in Iraq as soon as possible so that the power is given back to the Iraqi people”, he said. “The solution is for occupiers to leave Iraq.”

Kharrazi advised the US to consult Iraqi clerics and Iraq’s neighbours. Relying on force, he said, ”is a big mistake with severe consequences. They have to employ wisdom …. They (Americans) don’t know the psychology of the Iraqi people. They should avoid making more mistakes.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the US was doomed to fail in Iraq.

“Americans would be forced to leave Iraq with humiliation,” he said today.

“Americans arrived in Iraq in the name of democracy but have actually started killing people, making their record darker than ever before,” he said.

Khamenei said Iraqi reaction to US occupation should not be blamed on Iraq’s neighbours.

“Americans accuse others of intervening in Iraq’s internal affairs while it is a well-proven fact that their own crimes and humiliating treatment of Iraqi women and youth have driven the brave Iraqi nation, whether Sunni or Shiite, to react against the occupiers resulting in the existing situation which was predicted from a long time ago,” he said.