IRANIAN, U.S. DIPLOMATS MAY MEET IN MOSCOW MARCH 27

PanARMENIAN.Net
23.03.2009 18:50 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The U.S. State Department has confirmed that a
top American diplomat will be attending a meeting of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization being convened specifically to discuss
the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. A State Department spokesman
did not rule out that the US diplomat would hold talks with Iranian
officials on the sidelines of the meeting.

The SCO gathering is scheduled to take place on March 27 in
Moscow. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said U.S. Assistant
Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Patrick Moon would be
attending. The United States has no formal affiliation with the SCO,
but a US representative was invited to attend the special meeting
on Afghanistan.

"The reason why we think it’s important to go to this conference
is that it’s about Afghanistan and how the international community
can try to better the situation on the ground, better coordinate our
activities, see what types of things we can do together to help make
things better for the people of Afghanistan," acting State Department
spokesman Robert Wood said at a briefing on March 19. Wood added that
no meeting with Iranian diplomats had been "planned." But he pointed
out that it would not be "unusual for US and Iranian officials to
cross paths during a multilateral meeting, so I’m not going to rule
anything in or rule anything out."

Iran holds observer status in the SCO and has been invited to attend a
US-proposed summit on Afghanistan at The Hague on March 31, EurasiaNet
reported.