US, IRAN BREAK SILENCE OVER IRAQ

In the most important meeting between the United States and Iran in almost 30 years, US and Iranian diplomats met face to face on May 28, in the Iraqi capital Baghdad to discuss how to stabilise chaos-mired and violence-racked Iraq.
“There was pretty good congruence down the line, support for a secure, stable democratic and federal Iraq, in control of its own security and at peace with its neighbours,” US ambassador Ryan Crocker told a press conference following his meeting with Iranian ambassador in Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qomi, reports said.
“The Iranians as well as ourselves laid out the principles that guide our respective policies towards Iraq,” he said.
The Iranians proposed creating a trilateral security commission involving Iraqis and US representatives – a suggestion Crocker dismissed. “What we are doing today effectively was a security committee because on the level of policy there isn’t a great deal to argue about,” he said.
Crocker said the Iranians did not address specific US complaints, but instead criticised the American occupation as a whole and complained that US efforts to train Iraqi security forces were inadequate.
Washington has repeatedly accused Iran of training and supplying Iraqi armed groups fighting both Iraqi and foreign forces with weapons and ammunitions. Iran denies this.
US forces are holding seven alleged Revolutionary Guards agents detained in Iraq on suspicion of subversion, men Iran adamantly insists are diplomats. The US accuses Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran refutes the charge insisting that its programme is for peaceful civilian use.