Efforts to involve Iran in Afghanistan gather pace
Efforts to involve Iran in stabilizing Afghanistan are gaining pace and raising hopes that President Barack Obama can find a key to defuse tensions with Tehran on the nuclear and other fronts.
Calls for Iranian involvement in Afghanistan have come from US military chief Admiral Michael Mullen and US Middle East and Central Asia Commander General David Petraeus, as well as Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
The European Union said meanwhile Wednesday that Iran will be invited to talks preparing for a spring meeting between the EU and Asian nations that will focus on Afghanistan. Tehran was absent from a similar meeting in December.
Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that Iran is among countries in central Asia that could help bring stability to Afghanistan.
"Iran is unhelpful in many, many ways, so I wouldn't be overly optimistic at this point but there are mutual interests that I think might offer some possibilities," Mullen said.
Despite their antagonism, US officers and analysts say, Shia Muslim Iran shares the US fear of the Taliban's puritan Sunni strain of Islam and the drug trafficking that both crosses into Iran and fuels the Taliban insurgency.
Analyst Karim Sadjadpour said involving Iran could be the key to begin to thaw three decades of frozen US-Iranian diplomatic ties because they could find "common cause" in Afghanistan.
"It is a very intelligent idea because ... it kills two birds with one stone," Sadjadpour told AFP.
"You're helping to improve the situation in Afghanistan and you're helping to build confidence with Iran," according to the specialist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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