WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 — The United States will join other nations in high-level talks with Iran and Syria over the situation in Iraq this spring, in the first such engagement between the Bush administration and those two countries in three years.
The announcement today that the United States will take part in two sets of talks between Iraq and its neighbors, including Iran and Syria, represents a major shift in President Bush's foreign policy, which has eschewed direct, high-level contact between Washington, Damascus and Tehran.
While these talks are to focus on stabilizing Iraq, they crack open a door to a diplomatic channel, which has long been sought by administration critics who say that Washington should do more to engage Iran and Syria to help stem the violence in Iraq.
"I would note that the Iraqi government has invited Syria and Iran to attend both of these regional meetings," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today, in announcing the talks, which will also include the Britain, Russia and a host of international organizations and Middle East countries. "We hope that all governments seize this opportunity to improve their relations with Iraq — and to work for peace and stability in the region."
The first meeting — which will include senior Bush administration officials like David M. Satterfield, the State Department's senior adviser on Iraq — will be held in Baghdad in the first half of March, administration officials said. In early April, Ms. Rice will attend a ministerial level conference, which will likely be held somewhere else in the region.
The Iraqi foreign minister, Hosyar Zebari, called the face-to-face contact between the United States and Iran and Syria, two countries which the Bush administration has accused of destabilizing Iraq, "very significant."
"Iraq is becoming a divisive issue in the region," Mr. Zebari said in a telephone interview from Denmark, where he was traveling on business. "But Iraq can be helpful to its neighbors also. It can provide a platform for them to work out their differences."
Iraqi officials had been pushing for such a conference for several months now, but Bush officials refused to sign on until the Iraqi government reached agreement on guidelines for nationwide distribution of oil revenues and foreign investment in the country's immense oil industry, administration officials said.
Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and Kirk Semple from Baghdad.
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