U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker in Baghdad on May 28 AP PHOTO

Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi said May 28 that the two sides would meet again in less than a month. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker said Washington would decide only after the Iraqi government issued an invitation.

"We don't have a formal invitation to respond to just yet, so it doesn't make sense to respond to what we don't have," Crocker said.

The talks in the Baghdad Green Zone offices of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were the first formal meeting between Iranian and U.S. government officials since the United States broke diplomatic relations with Tehran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the seizure of the U.S. Embassy.

At the opening of the session Crocker and Kazemi shook hands.

The American envoy called the meeting "businesslike," and said at "the level of policy and principle, the Iranian position as articulated by the Iranian ambassador was very close to our own."

However, he said: "What we would obviously like to see, and the Iraqis would clearly like to see, is an action by Iran on the ground to bring what it's actually doing in line with its stated policy."

Speaking later at a news conference in the Iranian Embassy, Kazemi said: "We don't take the American accusations seriously."

The Japan Times Weekly: June 2, 2007
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