IRAQ SAYS IT’S OPEN TO TALKS WITH IRAN, SYRIA

Iraqi leaders said Monday that they were seriously considering three-way talks with Iran and Syria, responding to an overture from Iran’s president that raised new questions about the level of American influence here.

The talks would focus on how the two neighboring countries could help quell rising sectarian bloodshed in Iraq, according to Iraqi officials familiar with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s offer.

The invitation to a summit is a further assertion of Iran’s influence in Iraq, and it comes at a time when the U.S. government is sharply divided over whether to make an appeal of its own to Iran and Syria.

Influential figures in Washington have urged the Bush administration to talk to both countries in hopes of gaining their help to bring the violence in Iraq under control. But many of President Bush’s advisors oppose the idea.

White House policy has been to isolate Iran to compel the government to abandon its nuclear enrichment program and to refuse to talk with Syria until it drops its support for what the United States considers terrorist groups.

As the debate continues in Washington, Iran has stepped forward.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani plans to travel to Tehran on Sunday to meet with Ahmadinejad to try to iron out details of a possible three-way meeting, which would include Syrian President Bashar Assad, senior Iraqi officials said Monday. The move came as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem met in Baghdad and announced an agreement to reopen diplomatic relations, which were broken off in 1982.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey sought to play down the significance of a possible three-way summit, contending that previous statements by Iranian and Syrian leaders had not proved productive.

“What we’d like to see the Iranian government do is desist, first and foremost, from negative actions it’s taken in Iraq,” Casey said. “As we have always said with respect to the Syrians, you know, the problem is not what they say, the problem is what they do.”

Syria has served as an entry point and refuge for Sunni Arab Muslim insurgents who have carried out a steady stream of attacks on U.S. forces and the fledgling Iraqi government since the American-led invasion in 2003.

Iran, a Shiite Muslim nation, has significant influence over the Shiite militias that have increasingly attacked Iraq’s minority Sunnis.

Along with the debate over Iran and Syria, officials in Washington have been jousting over whether the U.S. should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq.

On Monday, Bush, speaking to reporters in Bogor, Indonesia, said he had made no decision about troop levels in Iraq and that he was waiting to hear from the Pentagon.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a probable 2008 GOP presidential candidate, has called for boosting the force beyond the 140,000 or so troops now in Iraq. Others want to establish a timetable to withdraw troops or to focus on the training of Iraqi security forces.

“I say go Iraqi,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), the outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “It doesn’t make sense to plan American deployments before you utilize all the Iraqi forces.”

Senior Iraqi officials say Ahmadinejad’s summit proposal was the impetus behind the meetings between Iraqi leaders and Syria’s foreign minister, the highest-level talks between the two Arab neighbors since the U.S.-led invasion.

Ahmadinejad first proposed three-way negotiations last year but was refused by then-Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari. Jafari and his advisors feared the United States would oppose giving Iran an intermediary role in Iraq and doubted Syria’s intentions, sources said Monday.

“We said we had issues with Syria and felt that Iran could not be a mediator,” said a high-ranking Iraqi official with knowledge of the discussions. “At the time, we said that the Syrians know what our expectations are and they needed to make the first move, which they have done by sending their foreign minister to listen to our grievances for their involvement in supporting what we consider terrorism.”

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the Iranian proposal with the media, said Ahmadinejad had contacted Maliki last month to renew his invitation with a suggestion that he visit Iran on Nov. 5 -- at the same time the Syrian president had scheduled a visit.

Iraqi leaders decided to delay negotiations until after the U.S. elections two days later in order to not affect the outcome, the official said.

The senior Iraqi official’s account was confirmed by another high-ranking politician with knowledge of Iraq’s foreign affairs.

Iran extended a third invitation to Iraq’s political leadership Nov. 10, said Haider Abaidi, a prominent Iraqi legislator with close ties to Maliki.

“They suggested that the three countries should sit together to discuss the security situation in Iraq because both countries are interfering with Iraq’s affairs,” Abaidi said. “Both were denying this for a long time, but this time the Iranians went a step further and said: ‘Why don’t we talk everything over together? All three of us.’ ”

Ali Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, said Talabani’s scheduled visit to Iran would capitalize on the momentum gained from the debate in the United States about opening a dialogue with Syria and Iran.

Abaidi said Iraq’s main factions, the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, had discussed Iran’s plan and had agreed, in principle, that it was worthwhile.

Three-way talks could boost Iran’s regional sway and could also put the Bush administration in the awkward position of having to acknowledge the influence of a nation it once called a member of the “axis of evil” and a sponsor of terrorism.

“I think Iran wants to make sure that everyone understands that it holds a lot of the cards in Iraq, just as it did in Lebanon and Afghanistan,” said Vali Nasr, author of “The Shia Revival” and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Iran is saying that Iran and Syria are two of the most important actors in Iraq, and if you want a solution in Iraq, or anywhere in the Middle East, you have to talk to them. It’s a regional game they’re playing, and they will not allow themselves to be left out.”

David Aaron, director of the Rand Corp.’s Center for Middle East Public Policy, said Iran and Syria could demand a high price for their cooperation.

Syria may ask the Bush administration to drop its support for a United Nations investigation into Syria’s alleged involvement in the slaying of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

And Iran may push the United States to abandon its opposition to its nuclear enrichment program.

But Nasr and Aaron contended that the initiative by Iran and Syria might also stem from broader national interests.

“All of the neighbors have a stake in this country not blowing apart or having a major civil war, because they will all get dragged into it,” Aaron said.

*

moore1@latimes.com

Times staff writers Paul Richter and Noam N. Levey in Washington and James Gerstenzang in Bogor contributed to this report.