Iran Agrees to Discuss Iraq With the U.S.

In what appears to be a major turnaround in policy, Iran’s national security chief announced Thursday that his government intended to name a team of negotiators to hold direct talks with the United States on the subject of calming civil strife in Iraq.

If negotiations take place, they will mark the first direct, open contact between the two governments in about two decades.

An aide to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the talks could lead to discussions of other issues, including the dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which the U.N. Security Council took up this week.

In Washington, however, White House spokesman Scott McClellan stressed that any contacts would be limited to the topic of Iraq. He played down the significance of the Iranian announcement and said he was not sure he would even characterize it as the start of “a dialogue.”

The Bush administration said last year that it was willing to engage in limited discussions with Iran about how to maintain peace in Iraq, with the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, authorized to speak to the Iranians. But until Thursday, Tehran had rebuffed the overtures.

The Iranian move came on the same day the Bush administration released its national security statement, revised for the first time in three years, which declares that Iran may be the largest security challenge to the United States. It also accuses the Iranian regime of sponsoring terrorism, threatening Israel, disrupting democracy in Iraq and thwarting Iranians’ desire for freedom.

The timing of Iran’s acceptance, just when it is facing possible action at the United Nations, suggests that the Iranians may be seeking to link any help to the United States in calming Iraq with the nuclear issue.

But the Bush administration said the two should not be linked.

“This is a very narrow mandate dealing specifically with issues relating to Iraq,” McClellan said of the proposed talks. The question of Iran’s nuclear program is a “separate issue” to be dealt with at the U.N., he added.

National security advisor Stephen J. Hadley said holding direct nuclear talks with Tehran might undercut the international consensus that has been built against Iran on the issue.

“We are, I think, beginning to get indications that the Iranians are finally beginning to listen, and there is beginning to be a debate within the leadership and, I would hope, a debate between the leadership and their people about whether the course they are on is the right course for the good of their country,” Hadley said.

“That has only come about because they have heard a coordinated message from the international community,” he added. “It’s been difficult to hold together. It has taken a lot of time.”

The prospect of one-on-one talks with the United States on the nuclear issue would only “suggest to Iran that they have an alternative way, other than responding to the demands of the international community,” Hadley said.

Iran’s foreign policy chief, Ali Larijani, told reporters in Tehran that the decision to hold talks on Iraq with the United States followed a request from two Iraqi leaders: Abdelaziz Hakim of the pro-Iranian Shiite group Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and interim President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd. Shiites make up a majority in the two Persian Gulf nations.

“Iraq is our natural ally, and its security is of principal importance to us,” Larijani said after he had briefed parliament in a closed session. “Since this has been asked from us by Mr. Hakim, we have agreed to this request to help resolve the issues in Iraq, and to assist with the formation of an independent and genuinely free Iraq.”

He said members of the negotiating team would be appointed soon. He did not say when or at what level the talks would be held.

Larijani, who is also Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, hinted that other policy adjustments were possible. He answered a question about Iran’s nuclear strategy by saying that “change in policies for arriving at our aims is mubah,” a religious term for “permissible.”

A senior aide to the Iranian president gave backing to the move, saying in an interview in Tehran that there was an urgent need for direct talks between the two countries, given the security situation in the region and Iraq.

“The fact that the Americans have reached the conclusion that they cannot resolve regional issues without Iran is in itself a huge victory for Iran and shows the determining role of Iran in the region,” said the aide, Hamid Reza Taraghi.

Taraghi said Iran could use this opportunity to resolve other problems, although Larijani indicated that the talks would focus on Iraq.

Tensions between Iran and the United States escalated sharply this year after the Iranian government defied international opinion and began small-scale enrichment of uranium, a move many Western countries feared was part of a plan to develop nuclear weapons.

The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions last month.

Council members this week began considering what measures could be taken against Iran, but no consensus has emerged so far.

Iran insists it is pursuing enrichment technology only to fuel civilian nuclear power plants.

Many Iranian political leaders say that the pressure over the issue really stems from Iran’s long-standing political problems with the United States, dating back to the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, and that only a broader understanding with Washington will resolve the issue.

In recent weeks, Larijani and other members of the government have shown interest in starting direct talks with Washington, rather than working through intermediaries. Such a policy change would, in effect, relax the ban on negotiations with “the Great Satan” that the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini instituted in the early days of the Islamic Revolution.

It’s not clear how the United States and Iran might work together to bring peace to Iraq. They did, however, quietly cooperate to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001, with both backing the Northern Alliance. And Iran has considerable influence in Iraq.

The leaders of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which dominates the largest parliamentary bloc in Iraq, lived in exile in Iran during the rule of Saddam Hussein. Iran helped arm and train their militias, some of whom now have been accused of participating in attacks against Sunni Arabs in the chaotic sectarian clashes that have left hundreds dead over recent weeks.

Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, said the Iranian leadership’s willingness to engage in talks now after rejecting them earlier was significant.

“We’re at the stage where one grasps at any sign of hope -- any potential resolution -- before the two sides escalate further,” he said.

Fitzpatrick, a former State Department official, said that even if the two sides were talking about Iraq, “the nuclear question is the issue at hand. If you look at Iran’s motivations for what it’s doing, there are issues of pride and there are issues of security concerns, and only the United States can address those security concerns.”

He said Iraq was “the only topic that the United States would want to talk to Iran about officially. But when you’re in a room talking, at least there’s a potential for probing to see if the other side might be willing to talk about something else.”

Times staff writer Daniszewski reported from London and special correspondent Naji from Tehran. Staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.