Iran upbeat on more talks with US on Iraq

IRAN: Iran said it was prepared to "view positively" the prospect of new talks with the United States over Iraq, if the Baghdad government believes it is necessary.

"If the government of (Prime Minister) Nuri al-Maliki and Iraqi officials emphasise a continuation of talks, then we will view this issue positively," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, according to the ISNA student news agency.

Mottaki was speaking after meeting Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, who arrived in Tehran on Sunday evening for a brief visit, the agency added.

The US and Iranian ambassadors to Iraq two weeks ago held landmark talks in Baghdad on security in Iraq, the highest-level public contacts between the two foes in 27 years.

The talks between Iran's Hassan Kazemi Qomi and Ryan Crocker of the United States appeared to achieve no major breakthrough, with the US side emphasising that the Iranians were told to stop stirring up trouble in Iraq.

Meanwhile emphasising the frosty atmosphere, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told visiting Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega on Sunday that "the United States is the most hated government in the world."

"In recent years in Latin America anti-US governments have taken power and in every country in the Islamic world if there is an election the ones who are most anti-American will win," said Khamenei, according to ISNA.

Meanwhile.Iran warned on Sunday that it would strike US military bases in neighbouring Gulf states if they were used as staging posts to attack the Islamic republic over its nuclear programme.

"We rule out the possibility that our neighbours... will allow the United States to use their territory in attacking Iran," Iranian parliament speaker Gholam Ali Hadad Adel told reporters during an official visit to Kuwait.

Tehran, Kuwait City, Monday, AFP