Reporting from Tehran and Beirut — Iran says it will join Americans in dispatching official delegations to two international conferences on Afghanistan in the coming days, including one in the Netherlands to which the Obama administration has welcomed Tehran's presence, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said today.
But Hasan Qashqavi told The Times the "level of participation is yet to be determined" for The Hague conference, suggesting Iran could dispatch a low-level envoy in what could be seen as an ambivalent response to Obama administration gestures.
Iran will dispatch Deputy Foreign Minister Mahdi Akhundzadeh to a Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference on Afghanistan to be held in Moscow on Friday, which will be also be attended by an American envoy.
The Dutch host of the conference in The Hague next Tuesday told news agencies late Wednesday that Tehran had confirmed its attendance.
Obama and other U.S. policymakers have pressed the idea of welcoming increased Iranian participation in efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, where Tehran and Washington's interests overlap, as a way of building trust between the two countries and resolving ongoing disputes. The U.S. and its allies in the Middle East harbor suspicions about Iran's nuclear program and oppose its support for Arab militant groups fighting Israel.
Afghanistan, Iran's eastern neighbor, meanwhile sinks deeper into chaos, with a resurgent Taliban gaining influence in large swaths of the country and opium production skyrocketing. Iranian officials' potential satisfaction at U.S. troubles in Afghanistan and Pakistan is tempered by alarm over the torrent of Afghan troubles spilling into their own country. Across Iran, there has been an upsurge in drug dealing, human trafficking and street violence connected to the mayhem in Afghanistan.
"Iran and the United States have a fundamental point of interest in the region vis-a-vis Afghanistan," said Sadegh Zibakalam, an Iran expert at Tehran University. "Both want to see a moderate, democratic, stable Afghanistan because if there is chaos in Afghanistan, it means opium to Iran and Afghan refugees in Iran."
Some Iranian analysts cautioned not to read too much into Iran's decision to dispatch envoys to The Hague, especially if it sends low-ranking officials, a move Iranians might make in order to deny giving Americans a public-relations victory.
