U.S. says in favor of good Iraq-Iran relations

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday voiced support for good relations between Iraq and Iran after word that Iran's president would visit Baghdad next month, but also urged Tehran to stop backing militants in Iraq.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will make a landmark visit to Baghdad on March 2 for talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and other officials, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said earlier.

Ahmadinejad's visit will be the first to Iraq by the president of the Islamic Republic, which is at loggerheads with the United States over the causes of violence in Iraq.

Washington accuses Iran of giving weapons and training to Shi'ite militias in Iraq, including explosive devices that have killed hundreds of U.S. troops. Tehran denies the charges.

"We want Iran and Iraq to have good relations," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in a statement. "The fastest way for that to happen is for Iran to stop supporting extremists in Iraq who kill innocent Iraqis and Americans."

U.S. President George W. Bush has spearheaded efforts to isolate Iran diplomatically over its nuclear program and has also accused Tehran of fomenting instability in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Ahmadinejad will spend two days in Iraq at the invitation of President Jalal Talabani.

Iran and Iraq fought an eight-year war in the 1980s in which hundreds of thousands were killed, but ties have improved since Saddam Hussein was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and a Shi'ite Islamist-led government came to power.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States did not see Ahmadinejad's visit to Iraq as a provocative gesture but he hoped their message would be positive.

"We would look for Iran to play a positive role in Iraq's present as well as its future. I know that in the past, Iraqi officials have talked to the Iranian government about playing a more positive role," McCormack told reporters.

Asked whether the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, would be prepared to meet Ahmadinejad during his visit to Baghdad, McCormack laughed and said: "I would not foresee that."

The announcement of Ahmadinejad's visit came soon after Iraqi officials said Iran had postponed talks with the United States on improving security in Iraq. Those talks had been scheduled to take place in Baghdad on Friday.

McCormack said he did not know why the Iranians had postponed Friday's meeting, but he said this had happened before. "We are still open to it, we will look for other dates in the future," he said.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Sue Pleming, editing by David Wiessler)