Iran says ready to consider any U.S. offer to talk

British Prime Minister Tony Blair will on Monday call for Syria and Iran to be engaged in efforts to stem violence in Iraq and help secure Middle East peace. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, another U.S. ally, backed the British proposal.

"If they (the United States) really want to hold talks with Iran, they should officially propose it and then Iran will review it," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told Reuters.

U.S. President George W. Bush is due on Monday to meet a bipartisan panel that is exploring alternative strategies on Iraq. Engaging with Syria and Iran on Iraq is an idea favoured by some members of the panel, which is co-chaired by former U.S. secretary of state James Baker.

The idea has previously been rejected by Bush. Washington accuses Iran of aiding the insurgency and stoking sectarian strife in Iraq, a charge Tehran denies.

Iranian government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham earlier said the Islamic republic would welcome any change in U.S. policy, but he did not directly address the issue of talks.

"If there is a 180-degree turn in the policies of America it would be a blessed event," Elham told a weekly news conference on Monday.

"We hope that America reconsiders its policies, leaves the region alone, ... abandons war-mongering and supporting terrorist groups in this region," Elham said.

Tehran, which had no ties with Washington since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, often calls for the United States to change its behaviour in the region.

Talks between Iran and the United States on Iraq seemed possible in March, but the idea was shot down a month later by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said such negotiations were not needed.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month signalled that Washington might join talks with Tehran to resolve the Iran nuclear issue, but only if the Islamic Republic first suspended uranium enrichment, something Iran has repeatedly refused to do. Reuters