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BAGHDAD - US and Iranian envoys will hold talks in Baghdad tomorrow to discuss Iraq's worsening chaos, following up on a landmark meeting in May, according Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.
"Iraq will host the second round of US-Iranian talks on the 24th of this month. We support this dialogue and hope it achieves tangible results," Zebari told Reuters by telephone.
Washington accuses Shi'ite Muslim Iran of fomenting violence in Iraq by backing militants. Iran denies the charges and blames the US-led invasion of 2003 for bloodshed between Iraq's majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Muslim Arabs.
But the growing conflict has pushed the two countries, which have not had diplomatic ties since shortly after Iran's 1979 revolution, to seek common ground.
Zebari said the ambassadors to Iraq from both countries would lead the talks, with Iraqi government officials present.
Iranian ambassador Hassan Kazemi-Qomi and US ambassador Ryan Crocker met in Baghdad on May 28 to discuss Iraq, in the most high-profile contact between the two enemy states for almost three decades.
Both envoys described those talks as positive and Iraq has been urging the two sides to meet again.
The United States has been leading diplomatic efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear ambitions, but both sides have said any additional talks, like the May discussions, will focus solely on Iraq.
The precise agenda of Tuesday's talks was not immediately clear.
Keeping up the pressure on Iran, the US military on Sunday said two suspected insurgents linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force had been detained during a raid on a farm near the Iranian border east of Baghdad. Iran does not officially acknowledge the Qods Force.
"The suspects may be associated with a network of terrorists that have been smuggling explosively formed projectiles, other weapons, personnel and money from Iran into Iraq," the military said in a statement.
Explosively formed projectiles, or EFPs, are sophisticated roadside bombs capable of sending molten slugs of metal through armour. Roadside bombs account for the majority of US military deaths in Iraq.
The US military has previously displayed what it says are Iranian-made rockets, mortars and roadside bombs seized in Iraq.
Spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox reiterated the US military's belief that "networks" of EFPs are being brought into Iraq from Iran. He likened US efforts at combating the networks to "draining a swamp".
"The ultimate solution in our view is to ensure that the source of these weapons could be controlled and dried up and that there would be a good neighbour policy here," Fox told a news conference in Baghdad.
At the May 28 talks, Kazemi-Qomi had called the meeting "a first step in negotiations between these two sides".
Crocker said then he was less interested in arranging further meetings than laying out Washington's case that Iran is arming, funding and training Shi'ite militias in Iraq.
The second round of talks comes after the Iranian envoy earlier this month made the first consular visit to five Iranians detained by US forces in northern Iraq in January.
Zebari had previously said he hoped that visit would improve relations between Washington and Tehran.
The US military says the five men are linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and were backing militants in Iraq. Iran has insisted they are diplomats and demanded they be freed.
- REUTERS
