by Jay DeshmukhMon Jul 23, 5:17 AM ET
The United States on Monday said it would hold direct talks with Iran this week to discuss the crisis in Iraq as MPs from the battered country remained divided over the outcome of the high-level meet.
"Yes, I can confirm that Ambassador (Ryan) Crocker will participate in the trilateral talks, including his Iranian counterpart and hosted by the Iraqi ministry of foreign affairs," spokesman for US mission in Baghdad Philip Reeker told AFP.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Sunday the envoys of the United States and Iran are set to meet in Baghdad on Tuesday for a second round of talks on the security situation in Iraq.
Arch foes United States and Iran had previously come together on May 28 in Baghdad for their first highest-level official talks in 27 years.
Washington broke off relations with Tehran in 1980 after Islamic revolutionaries seized the US embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days.
The May 28 encounter between Crocker and Iranian ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi did not achieve any major breakthrough and strictly remained limited to the security situation in Iraq.
Both sides stuck to their familiar positions, with Tehran calling for US troops to be pulled out and Washington accusing Iran of stoking the insurgency that is bedeviling Iraq.
Reeker said the meeting on Tuesday was also strictly "about Iraq."
The two countries remain at loggerheads over a range of issues including Iran's nuclear programme, which the United States claims is aimed at producing nuclear weapons, an accusation fiercely denied by Tehran.
US forces have frequently accused Iran of arming and training Iraqi militias, allegations that are also denied by Tehran.
Relations have been chilled further by the detention in Iraq by US forces of at least five Iranian officials who Tehran insists are diplomats, but Washington says are members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard.
Strains have also come from the detention by Tehran of three US-Iranians accused of espionage and harming national security by being linked to alleged US efforts to topple Iran's clerical authorities.
And on Sunday the US military levied fresh charges against Tehran, saying that Iranian agents continued to smuggle Iranian made armour piercing bombs -- explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs) -- to Iraqi extremists.
"We do feel that there are networks of EFPs that are coming from Iran," military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox said.
Since May 2004, when the EFPs emerged on the Iraqi battlefield, more than 200 US soldiers have been killed by these bombs which fire a fist-sized chunk of molten metal that can cut through even a heavily armoured vehicle.
Tehran denies being behind any weapons smuggling, but Fox insisted that weapons seized by Iraqi and US forces are clearly of Iranian manufacture.
Given the acrimonious backdrop, Iraqi lawmakers are divided in their expectations of Tuesday's meeting.
"Nothing much is expected from the US-Iran meeting," said lawmaker Mahmud Othman, a Kurd.
"US wants Iran to keep off Iraq and Iran wants US to leave Iraq. Each side has its own agenda," he said.
"Iraqis are insisting on such meetings because they themselves have failed to solve the problem. But Iraq's problems can be solved only by the Iraqis. They should work together."
Iraq's Shiite leaders, known for their close links with Shiite Iran, said the meeting was a positive step.
"There is a strong will by the three parties to solve the problems and support the Iraqi government," said Humam Hammoudi, MP from the Shiite Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, a party known to be close to Iran.
Shiite MP Abbas al-Bayati said the May 28 meeting had broken the "psychological barrier and the upcoming meeting will put in place a practical framework to help the three parties support the (Iraqi) political process."