WASHINGTON - US and Iranian envoys will meet in Baghdad on May 28 for talks on Iraq's security crisis, a State Department spokesman said Thursday.
"Iran has for some time talked about its interest in seeing a stable, secure, prosperous Iraq and we are asking them to follow through those words with action," Sean McCormack told reporters.
US ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker is to meet an Iranian delegation in the Iraqi capital, the State Department spokesman said.
"We would hope that they would take specific steps to help ensure Iraq's greater stability and security.
"We obviously have concerns about Iranian support for these (explosives) networks, their support for militias which are stalking sectarian violence," he said.
The United States claims Iran is supplying Iraqi fighters with roadside bombs, which have killed and maimed large numbers of US soldiers.
The May 28 talks are believed to be the first official bilateral ambassadorial encounter between the arch-foes since they mothballed relations after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced the date earlier Thursday and said the talks would deal only with the unrest in Iraq, excluding the top US issue: Iran's enriching of uranium.
"Nothing but Iraq is on the agenda for Iran and US talks," he told reporters during a conference of Islamic foreign ministers in Islamabad.
"The talks will strictly be focused on the security situation in Iraq," he added, saying the meeting would be held in the presence of Iraqi officials.
The United States and other Western powers fear Iran could use its enriched uranium to build bombs, while the Islamic republic says the nuclear fuel is for peaceful uses only.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that Iran would use the talks with US diplomats over Iraq to remind Washington of its duty as "occupiers" of the conflict-torn country.
"The Iranian foreign ministry, at the request of Iraq, decided to participate in face-to-face talks with the United States and remind them of their duties and responsibilities over the security of Iraq," he said.
The United States "made a written request for these talks and said they will not discuss any other issues except Iraq," Khamenei said in remarks broadcast on state television.
"And we tell them: even the Iraqi issue does not concern you and talks are only over the occupiers' duty about the security of Iraq," he added.

05/17/2007 16:38 GMT