Iran, US find common cause on Afghanistan
Iran: Barack Obama's administration had its first direct contact with
Iran Tuesday at a conference on Afghanistan where America and its old
foe found common cause on rebuilding the war-torn state.
But, in a sign Tehran and Washington are far from reconciled, Iran
warned that the planned US troop surge in Afghanistan would fail to
crush the Taliban-led insurgency there. US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton said top American and Iranian officials met at the international
conference in The Hague.
"Our special representative for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, had a
brief and cordial exchange with the head of the Iranian delegation," she
told reporters. But Iran's representative Mohammad Mehdi Akhoondzadeh
warned that President Obama's promised surge of US troops was a mistake.
"The presence of foreign forces has not improved things in the
country and it seems that an increase in the number of foreign forces
will prove ineffective too," the Iranian deputy foreign minister told
the conference. THE HAGUE, Wednesday,
AFP
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