Iran, US experts talk Iraq security
Afp, Baghdad
Iranian, Iraqi and US experts yesterday held the first meeting of a joint security committee looking to ease the insurgency in Iraq that has put arch-foes Washington and Tehran at loggerheads. The Iraqi government hosted the session, which lasted around four hours, inside the heavily fortified Green Zone compound in the heart of Baghdad -- an area which US commanders say is bombarded daily with Iranian-made shells. It was the first meeting of a security sub-committee whose creation was agreed at a second round of landmark talks in July between the Iranian and US ambassadors to Baghdad. "We could call the talks frank and serious, and focused as agreed on security problems in Iraq," US embassy spokesman Philip Reeker told AFP. Marcie Ries, minister-counsellor for political and military affairs, headed the US delegation, Reeker said. "They agreed to continue the discussions at a date to be established through regular diplomatic channel," he added. In Tehran, a foreign ministry spokesman said the ministry's pointman on Iraq, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, headed up the Iranian delegation at the talks. "This morning the meeting of the tripartite committee of Iran, America and Iraq started its work," said spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini. On July 24, the Iranian and American delegations, led by their ambassadors to Baghdad, were unable to agree during a landmark second meeting on ways to restore security to war-torn Iraq. But Iraq said the two sides did agree to create a tripartite security committee aimed at curbing militia activity, battling Al-Qaeda and securing borders, but without reference to the Shia militias Iran stands accused of arming.
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