27 March 2009

Al-Manaar -- Iran said on Thursday it would attend a U.N. conference on Afghanistan proposed by Washington and urged a regional solution to the "crisis".

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said Iran had yet to decide who to send to next Tuesday's international meeting in The Hague, which will be attended by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and delegates from more than 80 countries.

"Iran will participate," Qashqavi said. "The level of participation is not clear." Qashqavi added that Iran would also attend a separate meeting on Afghanistan in Moscow this week.

Iran says the United States is failing in Afghanistan but that Tehran is ready to help its eastern neighbor. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying a regional solution was needed.

"We believe that a regional solution should be found for the Afghanistan crisis," the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Mottaki as saying during a visit to Brazil.

"Iran's goal in the region is to help peace, stability and calm which is necessary for the region's progress," he said.

U.S State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid welcomed news of the participation of Iran, following President Barack Obama's offer of a "new beginning" in relations with the Islamic Republic.

But he said Clinton had no plans for a 'substantive' meeting with Iranian officials at the forum.

"This conference is about reaching a regional consensus about Afghanistan. It is not a conference about U.S.-Iranian relations," he said.

Iran Says West Must Respect Afghanistan

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, ahead of a March 31 conference on Afghanistan, said the West must respect the will of the Afghan people, the official IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

Iran has been invited by the United States to attend the conference in The Hague, but has so far not confirmed its participation.

Mottaki, quoted by IRNA, said the meeting at the end of the month "must focus especially on the true challenges in Afghanistan, namely respect for the will of the Afghan people and respect for its traditions."

IRNA reported that the foreign minister's remarks were made on Sunday during a visit to Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan for talks with his Afghan and Tajik counterparts.

"After seven years the international community -- especially the West -- has understood that the military option has brought about no result" in Afghanistan, Mottaki said. "It has been proven that the will and dignity of the Afghan people must be taken into account."

US President Barack Obama, in an interview aired Sunday on CBS television, said Washington must have an "exit strategy" in Afghanistan even as it expands its military, diplomatic and economic fight against a Taliban insurgency. His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said Tehran would receive an invitation to the March 31 international gathering on Afghanistan.

On Saturday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei said the Islamic republic was ready to reciprocate towards Washington if Obama changes US attitudes towards his country. He spoke a day after Obama offered Tehran a "new beginning" in US-Iran relations.

Italy has also decided to invite Tehran to a meeting of foreign ministers on Afghanistan on the sidelines of a G8 meeting in Trieste in June. Iran has yet to respond.