Iran Again Rules Out Iraq Talks With U.S.

Reuters ^ | 4 December 2005

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Iran today reiterated it has no intention of holding talks with the United States on helping improve security in neighboring Iraq.

Last week, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said he had been authorized by the State Department to meet Iranian officials for talks on Iraq.

Iranian officials on 29 November ruled out such talks.

And speaking in Tehran today, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi again poured cold water on the proposal.

Khalilzad today said he would urge Iranian officials to play a more constructive role in Iraq.

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"Negotiations with America were not on our agenda," said Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi.

SOURCE: IRAN'S AGENDA FOR THE WORLD, by Amir Taheri -- Arab News -- August 20, 2005

Last week Iran's newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave his reply: Democracy? Never! The answer is spelled out in a 7000-word document that Ahmadinejad presented as his government's "short- and long-term programs" to the Islamic Majlis (Parliament) on Tuesday. In it he categorically states that Western "ideas and concepts of government" have no place in Islam. Without using the word democracy, the document states that the new administration "bravely rejects all alien political ideas" as incompatible with Islam.