Obama Administration Has First Face-to-Face Contact With Iran

By MARK LANDLER

THE HAGUE — It was brief, it was unscheduled and it was not substantive, but a meeting Tuesday between Richard C. Holbrooke, a presidential envoy, and an Iranian diplomat marked the first face-to-face encounter between the Obama administration and the government of Iran.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed that Mr. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, greeted Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Mohammad Mehdi Akhondzadeh, on the sidelines of a major conference here devoted to Afghanistan.

“It was cordial, unplanned and they agreed to stay in touch,” Mrs. Clinton said to reporters at the end of the conference. “I myself did not have any direct contact with the Iranian delegation.”

Mrs. Clinton also said the United States handed the Iranian delegation a letter requesting its intercession in the cases of two American citizens who are being held in Iran and another who is missing.

These two American contacts with Iran are another step in the Obama administration’s policy of engagement. It is a tentative process, in which the White House makes symbolic gestures, like President Obama’s recent video greeting to the Iranian people and government for their New Year, while continuing to formulate its longer-term strategy.

Some officials, including Mrs. Clinton, are skeptical that Iran’s leaders will ever embrace the American overtures. But reaching out, analysts say, keeps Iran on the defensive by demonstrating to the Europeans, the Russians and others that the United States is sincerely trying. And talking about Afghanistan is easier than confronting more divisive issues, especially Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

For weeks, American officials regarded this conference as a good place to make a move. The delivery of the letter, along with Mr. Holbrooke’s greeting during a lunch break, suggested that the encounter was less than pure serendipity.

Mrs. Clinton also reacted warmly to remarks delivered by Mr. Akhondzadeh about what Iran would do to aid reconstruction in Afghanistan and to cooperate in regional efforts to crack down on the booming Afghan drug trade, which is spilling across the Iranian border.

“The fact that they came today, that they intervened today, is a promising sign that there will be future cooperation,” she said. “The Iranian representative set forth some very clear ideas that we will all be pursuing together.”

The rise of Afghanistan’s drug trade with Iran gives Tehran a natural role to play, Mrs. Clinton said. “The questions of border security, and in particular the transit of narcotics across the border from Afghanistan to Iran is a worry that the Iranians have, which we share,” she said.

Iran cooperated with the United States on Afghanistan in the days after the 2001 terrorist attacks, and administration officials still view it as one of the most promising avenues for a reconciliation. Mrs. Clinton had pushed for Iran to be included on the invitation list for the United Nations-sponsored conference.

The encounter also illustrated the forceful personality of Mr. Holbrooke, whose job title does not include Iran, but who has managed to put himself at the center of the administration’s foreign-policy initiatives.

Iran, which was a no-show at the last Afghanistan conference, in Paris, did not send an official of Mrs. Clinton’s level, unlike most participants. But by sending Mr. Akhondzadeh, a former ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, it was clearly not trying to avoid contact.

Still, the unsigned letter, which an American official handed directly to the Iranians, was a reminder that there were many thorny obstacles to better relations. The cases of the three Americans have dragged on for months, frustrating the families and the government.

“We ask Iran to use its facilities to determine the whereabouts and ensure the quick and safe return of Robert Levinson, and grant the release of Roxana Saberi, and permission to travel for Roxana Saberi and Esha Momeni,” Mrs. Clinton said, quoting from the letter. “These acts would certainly constitute a humanitarian gesture by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Mr. Levinson, a former F.B.I. agent, disappeared in March 2007. Ms. Saberi, a freelance journalist who has worked for National Public Radio, was arrested by Iranian authorities on Jan. 31.

Ms. Momeni, a graduate student at California State University, Northridge, was arrested last October, accused of a traffic violation. She was conducting research on the Iranian women’s movement.

At the conference, Iran offered support and criticism of the Obama administration’s new policy on Afghanistan. It praised the focus on regional cooperation, but it argued that sending more foreign troops to Afghanistan would be ineffective.

That came not long after Mrs. Clinton explained the Obama administration’s decision to deploy 17,000 additional soldiers, as well as 4,000 more military trainers, to buttress Afghan security forces.

Mrs. Clinton had a busy day of diplomacy, notably a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, at which the two discussed cooperation on a variety of issues.

For the most part, though, the focus was on Afghanistan — less as a military issue than as a development problem. Mrs. Clinton called for a new start in Afghanistan, emphasizing more effective development and better regional coordination.

“Our collective inability to implement a clear and sustained strategy has allowed violent extremists to regain a foothold in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and make the area a nerve center for efforts to spread violence from London to Mumbai,” Mrs. Clinton said.

Source : The New York Times

Afghan summit could bring U.S. and Iran to table

By Mark Landler

BRUSSELS: Setting up the prospect of its first face-to-face encounter with Iran, the Obama administration proposed a conference on Afghanistan later this month, which is likely to include Iran among the invited participants, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday.

"We presented the idea of what is being called a big-tent meeting, with all the parties who have a stake and an interest in Afghanistan," Clinton said at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers here.

"If we move forward with such a meeting, it is expected that Iran would be invited, as a neighbor of Afghanistan," she said in a news conference at the end of the meeting.

The Netherlands is being considered as a host for the conference, which would take place March 31 and be chaired by the United Nations. Iran did not say whether it would accept an invitation.

Clinton's proposal underscores that Afghanistan may prove to be the most promising avenue for opening a channel to Iran - something President Barack Obama has made a theme of his foreign policy. On Wednesday, Clinton noted that Iran consulted frequently with the United States in the early days of the American-led war to oust the Taliban in 2001.

At the same time, she kept up an unyielding tone toward Iran, noting that the American plan to install a missile defense system in Eastern Europe is driven by the threat of regimes like that in Iran, which possess long-range missiles and are seeking nuclear weapons.

"There's an ongoing debate about what the status of Iran's nuclear weapons production capacity is," Clinton said. "But I don't think there is a credible debate about their intentions."

Prodded by the United States, NATO also agreed to resume high-level consultations with Russia, six months after they had been suspended following Moscow's military offensive against Georgia.

Clinton called for a "fresh start" with Russia, even though Washington refuses to recognize two breakaway Georgian territories that prompted the war and reject Russia's assertion of "spheres of influence."

"It is time to move ahead, not wait in place with illusion that things will change on their own," she said. "It is time for realism, as well as hope."

Clinton said there were areas where NATO and Russia could work together, including Afghanistan, fighting the drug trade, and confronting nuclear proliferation, particularly in Iran and North Korea.

On Afghanistan, Clinton said, "We hope that this meeting could provide an opportunity to reach a common set of principles."

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said, "I do hope that Iran will be present this time," noting that Iran declined an invitation to a conference on Afghanistan held in Paris in December.

The United States, which has called for a "reset" in relations between the United States and Russia, worked to achieve a consensus among NATO members on resuming talks with Russia.

American diplomats persuaded Lithuania, the last holdout among NATO members, to go along rather than demand further debate at a NATO summit meeting in early April.

The NATO secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said the resumption of high-level consultations did not mean that the alliance would drop its objections to Russia's plan to build military bases in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the two breakaway territories of Georgia.

"It's not a fair-weather forum and the weather is certainly not fair," de Hoop Scheffer said, referring to the NATO-Russia Council.

De Hoop Scheffer declined to comment on Obama's proposal to the Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev, that the United States drop its deployment of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Russia agreed to cooperate in the campaign against Iran's nuclear program.
Russia welcomes NATO thaw

Russian officials immediately welcomed NATO's decision to resume ties, news agencies reported from Brussels.

"We need to get down to business fast to ensure stability and security in Afghanistan," said Dmitri Rogozin, Russia's envoy to NATO. Russia had already demonstrated its willingness to help the war effort by arranging for the first overland transport of supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan, he added.

Before the NATO meeting, Russia had said it would allow transit of non-lethal U.S. military supplies for Afghanistan. With its supply lines under pressure from militant attacks, NATO hopes that in future such help could be extended to air transit, air lift and routes for lethal aid.

It also hopes to see Russian cooperation in encouraging Central Asian states to allow the passage of NATO supplies, and in keeping open bases used by NATO forces, one of which is about to be closed down by Kyrgyzstan.

Clinton is set to hold her first substantive talks with Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva on Friday and agreement on resuming ties with NATO will help the atmosphere.

Lithuania, like Georgia a former Soviet republic that gained independence in 1990, argued at the NATO meeting Thursday that the Russia move required more discussion and should have awaited a NATO summit meeting April 3-4 in France, according to a senior U.S. official who revealed details of the private talks on condition that he not be identified.

Lithuania's foreign minister, Vygaudas Usackas, said it was "a bit premature" to reward Russia with restored relations with NATO.

Clinton and the others seemed to have underestimated the depth of feeling among the Lithuanians, who forced Clinton and the other foreign ministers to prolong the meeting and huddle in minister-only negotiations that dragged on well into the afternoon. The Lithuanians were finally persuaded to join the consensus.