Rice calls on Tehran to attend summit on the future of Iraq

By FT reporters

Published: April 23 2007

Condoleezza Rice is urging Iran to join her at a high-level conference on the future of Iraq next week, signalling that Washington is ready for a serious exchange of views with Tehran after several months of pushing back against Iran's advances in the region.

In an interview with the Financial Times, the US secretary of state said it would be a "missed opportunity" if Manouchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, did not attend the minister-level meeting to be hosted by Egypt.

Ms Rice denied that the Bush administration's Iran policy had ever been directed at regime change, insisting that the aim was to "have a change in regime behaviour".

Washington's need to secure the right regional environment for an eventual withdrawal from Iraq is growing more acute because its "surge" of troops is failing to contain the violence.

That "hostile forces" would respond to the US security plan was to be expected, Ms Rice said, blaming al-Qaeda, not Iran, for the suicide bombings. She said two more US brigades were still to be deployed, adding the US needed "a little time" to judge the "trend lines".

Ms Rice's attempts to draw Iran into the conference - which will include Iraq's neighbours as well as the permanent members of the UN security council and the G8 industrialised nations - contrasted with her previous resistance to such talks.

Since then there had been a "rebalancing", she said, particularly after a speech by President George W. Bush on January 10 announcing the extra troops and a more aggressive response to Iran's perceived role in arming and training Iraqi Shia militia.

Analysts said it remained to be seen whether the US had achieved what Robert Gates, the defence secretary, said in January was the "leverage" it needed.

Iran says it will decide on its attendance at the May 3-4 conference after meeting Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister, this week. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman yesterday noted a "softening" in Ms Rice's rhetoric. But he added any "shift" should be put into practice.

Reporting by Guy Dinmore, Lionel Barber and Ed Luce in Washington and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran