TEHRAN, July 17 (UPI) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tuesday the country looks forward to more talks with the United States about Iraq's security situation.
Speaking to reporters in Tehran, Mottaki said Iraq had requested Iran's participation in talks, and that Swiss officials who intermediate between Washington and Tehran had been notified, Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Relations between Iran and the United States were frozen since 1980, but the two sides convened for the first time in late May to discuss Iraq's sectarian violence and regional stability.
Mottaki said any talks would also include discussion of the U.S. detention of five Iranians, taken in a January raid in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.
The U.S. military claims the men were engaged in training Iraqi insurgents, while Iran claims they had diplomatic immunity.
"The immediate release of five Iranian diplomats are one topic of our agenda and we will spare no efforts to materialize the goal," Mottaki said.
