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U.S. aims to keep Iran atomic talks separate from Islamic State conflict

20 September 2014 00:38 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. U.S. officials hope to prevent two diplomatic challenges with Iran from colliding next week: the Iranian nuclear program and the threat posed by the Islamic State militant group.

Their basic dilemma is how to keep Iran from hardening its stance in the nuclear talks out of a belief, which U.S. officials say would be misguided, that Washington might make nuclear concessions in exchange for help against IS, APA reports quoting Reuters.

A related problem is how to address the threat from the Sunni militant group without somehow enlisting the help of Iran, which has extensive influence in Iraq and in neighboring Syria.

A third difficulty is whether major Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia will be willing to participate in any coalition against the Islamic State group if Shi'ite Iran played any role.

"In the long run it will be difficult to find solutions without Iran," a senior Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity. "Mainly the Americans are against that, but there are still some members in the Arab region who are ... not very comfortable sitting with Iran at the same table," he added.