Iraqi Shi'ite leader says wants Iran-U.S. talks

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A powerful Iraqi Shi'ite leader said on Monday that Iraqi officials want to see talks between Iran and the United States as a means of easing tensions in the region.

"A negotiation between Iran and America is really important. All the Iraqi authorities involved in Iraq are calling for this," Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who spent years in exile in Iran, was quoted by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

When he visited Tehran in March 2006, he also called for dialogue between the two foes. That proposal initially won Iran's backing, but Tehran later said it had no need for such discussions.

Hakim was speaking after a meeting in Tehran with Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

At a joint news conference, a reporter asked Larijani if he would attend a February 9-11 security conference in Munich, Germany, and if he would talk with U.S. officials there.

Larijani responded: "The answer to the first question is 'yes' and to the second one is 'no'."

The United States has said it is ready for talks with Iran if it first halts uranium enrichment, the part of Tehran's nuclear program that most worries the West because it fears Tehran wants to use it to make atomic warheads.

Iran, which insists it only wants to enrich uranium to make fuel for power stations, has rejected such a precondition. In the past, it has also said that Washington must change its hostile attitude for talks to begin.

As well as being at loggerheads over Iran's nuclear program, Washington also accuses Iran of fuelling violence in the Iraq. Tehran dismisses the charge, blaming the U.S. for destabilizing Iraq and for stoking tension between Shi'ites, who form a majority in Iran and Iraq, and Sunnis.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to attend the Munich conference, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.