US-Iran diplomatic dance ends with ice cream chat

By Sue Pleming

SHARM EL-SHEIKH (Reuters) - The United States said for weeks Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was open to talks with Iran's foreign minister about Iraq, but in the end her exchange amounted to pleasantries over ice cream.

The top diplomats danced around one another for two days in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, but Rice told reporters on Friday the opportunity had never arisen for a bilateral meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

"You can ask him why he didn't make an effort. Look, I'm not given to chasing anyone," Rice said at the end of meetings with Iraq's neighbours and world powers to try and stabilise Iraq.

Asked why he did not meet Rice, Mottaki told a news conference: "There was no time, no appointment and no plans."

Their only close encounter was at lunch on Thursday where at the awkward prodding of their Egyptian host. They made small talk over dessert and avoided discussion over Iraq or Iran's nuclear programme, the key areas of contention between the two.

A few hours later at a ministerial dinner where Mottaki was meant to sit opposite Rice, he left before the guests were even seated, complaining about a "revealing" red dress worn by an entertainer, said a U.S. official.

"I don't know which woman he was afraid of, the woman in the red dress or the secretary of state," said Rice's spokesman, Sean McCormack.

Attempts to meet with the Iranians is a reversal of six years of the Bush administration isolating Tehran and part of an emerging policy of pressure and engagement to persuade countries like Syria and Iran to quell the violence in Iraq.