Crisis of opportunity for Iran and the US (Asia Times)

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Crisis of opportunity for Iran and the US
Asia Times
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has stated his determination to turn "the present threats into opportunities" for Iran and, by all indications, the brewing crisis between Turkey and Iraq represents precisely such a scenario, in light of Iran's excellent relations with all the parties involved and its ability to play an effective crisis-prevention role. On the eve of the much-anticipated high-level summit on Iraq and its neighbors in Istanbul, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who was due in Ankara on Friday, coinciding with the visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveled to Syria and Iraq. And while on a stopover in Baghdad, he was urged by the Iraqi leadership to mediate the "border crisis" with Turkey.

The Istanbul summit, which includes the foreign ministers of Iraq and its neighbors, plus the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the Group of Eight, is due to start on Friday night and continue into Saturday.

A litmus test of Iranian diplomacy, Mottaki's ability to deliver the goods on this front will undoubtedly help Iran's own crisis with the US and Israel on the nuclear issue. The big question is, of course, whether or not the US, which has reportedly sent signals to Tehran regarding a fourth round of bilateral Iran-US dialogue on Iraq's security <1>, will tolerate Iran's mediation in the Kurdish crisis. More importantly, can anyone prevent the outbreak of the present Kurdish crisis from developing into a full-blown crisis, given the admission by various top Turkish government officials and experts that Turkey's invasion of northern Iraq, to deal with the menace of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), is irreversible...cont'd

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IK03Ak03.html