DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - U.S.A./IRAN: U.S. IRANIAN BLOVIATIONS ON THE RISE, THE SWISS ACT AS CONDUIT

It's unofficial: U.S., Iran talking, sources say
By Warren P. Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTONThe U.S. has quietly increased its back-channel diplomatic contacts with Iran in recent months, a sign that those who favor engagement with Tehran have strengthened their hand in the Bush administration, according to U.S. officials.

Using Switzerland as an intermediary, U.S. and Iranian officials have exchanged diplomatic messages on a variety of nuts-and-bolts subjects, including the fate of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, a U.S. citizen missing in Iran; the future of five Iranian operatives whom U.S. forces seized in Iraq; and old financial and property disputes.

The contacts amount to a shift for the White House, which rebuffed an Iranian offer of wide-ranging talks on Iran's nuclear program, Middle East peace and direct relations after the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Instead of engaging Iran, the White House largely shut down the Swiss channel, which both countries use in the absence of formal diplomatic relations.

"There's no doubt there's more willingness to talk now than there was a few years ago," one State Department official said.

U.S. officials, who discussed the sensitive issue on the condition of anonymity, said it doesn't amount to a secret dialogue over the biggest U.S.-Iranian dispute: Iran's uranium-enrichment program, which U.S. officials say is intended to develop a nuclear weapon.

...


Pertinent Links:

1) It's unofficial: U.S., Iran talking, sources say