State Department
30 January 2008
The State Department said Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad did not have advance permission for a joint appearance last week in Switzerland with the Iranian Foreign Minister. The U.S. diplomat and the Iranian minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, appeared together at a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the United States is ready for an open-ended political dialogue with Iran if it stops work on enrichment, which U.S. officials believe will give Iran the capability to build nuclear weapons.
U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker has had meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad but they have been limited to Iraqi security issues. The Swiss government acts as an intermediary for other diplomatic exchanges between the two countries, which have not had formal relations since 1980.
Khalilzad, an Afghan-American, had contacts with Iranian officials on Afghanistan-related issues when he served as the U.S. ambassador in Kabul from 2003 to 2005.
A spokesman for Khalilzad said he had no separate meeting, conversation or even a handshake with Mottaki in Davos.
Khalilzad will be spearheading U.S. contacts in the Security Council in the coming days on a new sanctions resolution against Iran, the third such measure since late 2006, because of its nuclear program.
Secretary Rice and other big-power foreign ministers approved the draft resolution last week in Berlin. It reportedly would ban trade with Iran in so-called "dual use" technology - having both military and civilian applications, and authorize inspections of air and sea cargo bound for Iran.