Rice Meets With Syrian Counterpart

No U.S.-Iran Session At Conference on Iraq

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, May 3 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met here Thursday with her Syrian counterpart in the first high-level talks between the two governments in more than two years. Rice characterized the 30-minute session, held on the sidelines of a two-day international conference on Iraq at this Egyptian Red Sea resort, as "businesslike" and "very constructive."

Senior Bush administration officials said that she would not hold a widely anticipated meeting with Iran's foreign minister, but that the United States plans to hold direct talks with Tehran in the near future. Conversations will be limited, as were the talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem, to the subject of Iraq, they added.

Officials said the decision to end the U.S. isolation of Syria and Iran -- which the administration accuses of facilitating insurgent and militia violence in Iraq -- was made in Washington in the days leading up to the conference. President Bush has long rejected calls from administration critics and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to begin talks.

Acknowledging a change in policy, officials characterized it as a response to direct appeals from the Iraqi government and emphasized that it should be seen in the context of the conference. "Everybody is here making a commitment" to help Iraq, said one official.

At Thursday's conference sessions, sponsored by the United Nations and the Baghdad government, foreign ministers and representatives from Iraq's neighbors, Europe and Asia pledged increased assistance and debt forgiveness.

Although the United States continues to play the lead role in supporting the Baghdad government, years of uphill efforts, worsening violence on the ground and pressure from Congress and the American public have increased the administration's eagerness to share some of the burden of a problem it calls a threat to world peace and an international responsibility.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert M. Kimmitt said he was gratified both by the attendance and the commitments made at the Thursday conference, including pledges to forgive roughly $32 billion of Iraq's remaining $56 billion debt from the Saddam Hussein era. In return, neighboring Arab states led by Saudi Arabia have demanded stepped-up political and security reforms and more equitable sharing of oil revenue among Iraq's ethnic and religious groups.

Administration officials said they expected discussions with Tehran would begin in the near future with direct dialogue between the U.S. and Iranian ambassadors in Baghdad and could expand to other levels.

Although Rice had publicly left open the possibility of a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki here, officials said the Iranian government had indirectly indicated to Washington in recent days that he was not the man, and this was not the place, to begin a new dialogue. Mottaki is not believed to be close to Iran's supreme religious leader or to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"If I have an opportunity to deliver a message or to reinforce the message that has been delivered here about the need to support Iraq, then obviously I'd take that opportunity," Rice said of Iran after the Thursday conference session. "But we haven't planned and have not asked for a bilateral meeting, nor have they asked us."

She and Mottaki exchanged pleasantries at a lunch for foreign ministers, State Department officials said.

Administration officials expected the two would do the same at a dinner hosted by Egypt. But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said after the dinner that Mottaki apparently left as Rice was arriving and that "she did not see the Iranian foreign minister."