By NNN-KUNA
Washington : The US top diplomat in Iraq has expressed Washington’s readiness to renew talks with Iran on improving security in Iraq.
“We have told the Iraqis that we are prepared to move to another round of direct security talks with Iran if the Iraqis think that is a step they want to take,” US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker told a news conference in Newseum, the newly-opened museum of news in the US capital.
Crocker said that the United States would make sure in these trilateral talks “to point out what we know of what they are doing to undermine Iraqi security”.
The US ambassador noted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Baghdad is “not an unnatural occurrence between two neighbouring countries”.
“We welcome Iranian religious tourists, we welcome their investment money, we welcome their goods and services; we do not welcome their bombs,” the US Commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq General David Petraeus said.
Asked if the Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr is an enemy of the United States, Petraues replied that Sadr is “the face and the leadership of a very important and legitimate political movement in Iraq” and reminded that he was part of the ruling coalition behind Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and has 30 seats in parliament.
“It is a movement that has to be not just acknowledged but addressed, dealt with, reached out to by the government of Iraq,” Petraeus said.
Crocker highlighted the significance of the local provincial elections in Iraq next fall. “The way forward for a stable Iraq lies as much through successful elections, in my view, over the long term, as it does through the necessary application of force against those who resist the state relationship,” he added.