Countries bordering Iraq and those with a stake in its future meet in Egypt on Thursday and Friday to discuss how to contain the conflict and prevent it sucking in Iraq's neighbors. While diplomats are skeptical security can improve inside Iraq in the short term, some hope the meeting will increase pressure to end external support for different factions and instead emphasize programs to help rebuild the country.The highlight of the two days of talks would be a meeting on the sidelines between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, a first at this level since the Bush administration took office in 2001. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters he expected Rice to have talks in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh with Mottaki and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem.
Such meetings would mark a reversal of policy by the Bush administration, which rejected last year a high-level commission's recommendation that it open a dialogue with the two governments to help ease the situation in Iraq. "I believe there will be a bilateral meeting between the Iranians and the Americans," Zebari said.
The United States has ruled out what Rice called "full-scale negotiations" with Iran, widely regarded as the neighboring country most able to influence events inside Iraq. "I don't expect big things from this meeting. There should be a strong and sincere dialogue between the United States and Iran and Syria, but I don't have the impression that the current American administration is really willing to do that," said Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist at Cairo University.