Middle East

Iran to send top envoy to Baghdad

(AP)
Updated: 2007-04-29 16:42

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Sunday stepped up its interest in this week's major conference on Iraq, sending top envoy Ali Larijani to Baghdad and flashing signals that it is considering the meeting favorably.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Larijani would discuss the conference with Iraqi government officials as Iran has "some questions and ambiguities about the agenda."

Iran is the only country not to have announced its participation in the conference on Iraq that will be held in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik on Thursday and Friday. All of Iraq's other neighbors as well as Egypt, Bahrain and representatives of the big five UN Security Council members have agreed to attend.

In Baghdad, an adviser in the prime minister's office, Sadiq al-Rikabi, said Larijani would meet top officials. "It is a very important visit," he added.

Iran sent signals Sunday that it was warming toward the conference.

"Iranian officials are following this case with a positive point of view," Hosseini told reporters at a briefing.

Asked whether Iran would attend the conference, he replied: "God willing, a final decision will be announced today or tomorrow."

And the head of the parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy, Alaeddin Boroojerdi, said an Iranian delegation should go to Sharm el-Sheik.

"Iran should attend the conference, actively and powerfully," Boroojerdi was quoted as saying by Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Boroojerdi added that if Iran did not participate, it would lay itself open to criticism from the United States.

Iran has demanded the release of five Iranian officials detained in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil by US troops in January.

Iran says the official were diplomats who should not have been detained. The US military has said the Iranians are suspected of links to a network supplying arms to Iraqi insurgents - an accusation that Iran has denied.

Hosseini denied Sunday that Iran had linked its participation at the conference to the release of the five detainees.

"It is not intended to tie the fate of these five with that of the conference," the Foreign Ministry spokesman said when asked about such a link.