Iraq reaches out to Iran -- with or without U.S.

"Because of the simplest things, any country will question the basis of your sovereignty, and that weakens the position of the Iraqi government."

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'Not a new discovery'

Iraqi officials want the U.S. to release the five Iranians. Zebari described them as "Iranian officials" working in a "liaison office" where Iraqis could go for "consular services like travel permits to Iran."

Kurdish regional authorities and the government in Baghdad knew about the Iranians in Irbil and were in the process of transforming the agency into a consulate, Zebari said.

"This is not a new discovery, this office," he said. The Iranians had been "working there publicly, openly. It was not a clandestine network. That's the thing we need to explain to our friends."

He said the Iraqi government had not been shown any of what Casey said was evidence that the Iranians were spies. He said Iraq had not been part of the interrogation.

While Iraq has been strengthening its ties with Iran, it has also made overtures to its western neighbor Syria. Talabani is on a state visit to Damascus, the first such high-level meeting in almost three decades.

"For some time, we've been working quietly with them to normalize relations, to start up security talks with them," Zebari said.

The Iraq Study Group recommended that the U.S. begin a dialogue with Iran and Syria.

But administration officials, under the sway of neoconservative intellectuals who see Iran as a danger to Israel and the U.S., have resisted such calls, saying Tehran must give up its nuclear program and stop supporting militant groups in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon before there can be talks.

Last year, Abdelaziz Hakim, a leading Shiite politician in Iraq who spent years in exile in Iran, tried to improve U.S.-Iran relations by proposing that Iraq act as a go-between or a host for talks between the two nations. Iran rejected the plan when it became public, Zebari said.

Instead, relations have worsened, creating diplomatic headaches in Iraq.

"This is not a clean war," Zebari said. "These complications, embarrassments happen. Through these last three, four years we've been through this many times."

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roug@latimes.com

daragahi@latimes.com