US-Iran diplomatic dance ends with ice cream chat

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, May 4 (Reuters) The United States said for weeks Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was open to talks with Iran's foreign minister about Iraq, but in the end her exchange amounted to pleasantries over ice cream.

The top diplomats danced around one another for two days in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, but Rice told reporters today the opportunity had never arisen for a bilateral meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

''You can ask him why he didn't make an effort. Look, I'm not given to chasing anyone,'' Rice said at the end of meetings with Iraq's neighbours and world powers to try and stabilise Iraq.

Asked why he did not meet Rice, Mottaki told a news conference: ''There was no time, no appointment and no plans.'' Their only close encounter was at lunch yesterday where at the awkward prodding of their Egyptian host. They made small talk over dessert and avoided discussion over Iraq or Iran's nuclear programme, the key areas of contention between the two.

A few hours later at a ministerial dinner where Mottaki was meant to sit opposite Rice, he left before the guests were even seated, complaining about a ''revealing'' red dress worn by an entertainer, said a US official.

''I don't know which woman he was afraid of, the woman in the red dress or the secretary of state,'' said Rice's spokesman, Sean McCormack.

Attempts to meet with the Iranians is a reversal of six years of the Bush administration isolating Tehran and part of an emerging policy of pressure and engagement to persuade countries like Syria and Iran to quell the violence in Iraq.

Rice had a half-hour meeting with Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem yesterday, the first such high level talks in more than two years.

CAUSTIC SPEECH Several US officials said resistance for talks at the conference came from Tehran, which is angry over the US refusal to release five Iranians held by US forces in Iraq.

Washington, which broke ties with Iran in 1980, blames Iran for destabilising Iraq. But in a caustic speech to the conference, Mottaki said the 2003 US invasion was the cause of Iraq's troubles and U.S. troops must leave.

Many experts, including a bipartisan US panel on Iraq last year, have urged Bush's administration to engage Syria and Iran.

While the formal meeting between Rice and Mottaki failed to materialise, US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker did meet Iran's deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.

Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari played up the encounter, calling it a ''positive sign''. But Crocker said it only lasted three minutes.

Analysts said Iran would be closely watching Rice's interactions with Syria just as Tehran had when North Korea cut a deal with Washington and others over its own atomic programme.

''If Syria does engage more broadly with the West, that leaves Iran almost entirely isolated in the Middle East,'' said Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

There has been a softer US tone towards Iran in recent months with less beating of ''war drums'', said Middle East expert Shibley Telhami.

For example, last week Rice said in an interview with the Financial Times that the Bush administration was not pushing for regime change in Iran but a change in behaviour.

Another US official explained this as a combination of measures, including a beefed-up naval presence in the Gulf coupled with a US push for UN sanctions against Iran.

''We are in a position now to walk softly and use the big stick,'' he said.

Reuters ABM VP0320