RP forests teem with food

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran said on Saturday that upcoming talks with the United States on Iraq could bear fruit if Washington changed its "wrong" policies in Iraq.

"If the United States acknowledges its past wrong policies in Iraq and decides to change those policies ... one could be optimistic about these talks and their future," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters.

"The Islamic republic is interested in successful dialogue to help the Iraqi people and government within this framework," he said.

Iran's envoy in Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi, will meet US Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Monday in the highest-level official bilateral talks between the two sides since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The United States and Iran broke off diplomatic relations in 1980 after radical students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held its diplomats hostage for 444 days.