Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi in Tehran on Sunday announced that Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi will not attend the upcoming Jordan meeting.
Addressing reporters during his weekly press briefing, he said although Jordanian Foreign Minister Hani Mulki has called on his Iranian counterpart to take part in the conference of Iraq`s neighbors to be held in Amman on January 6, Kharrazi will not attend the meeting, IRNA reported.
The foreign ministers of Iraq's six neighbors - Jordan, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran - agreed on the sidelines of an international conference on Iraq held last month in Egypt to meet in Jordan in early January.
The Amman conference decided upon at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh will evaluate the security situation in Iraq ahead of the general elections.
According to IRNA, Tehran had previously said that its foreign minister might boycott the meeting after the Jordanian king charged that Tehran was meddling in Iraq's affairs.
The news agency said King Abdullah II accused Iran of trying to influence the January 30 Iraqi elections in a bid to create a "crescent" dominated by
Shiites extending from Iraq to Lebanon.
Tehran attaches great importance to developments in Iraq, but Iran will take part in the meeting at a lower level, Asefi told reporters.
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
