Rice, Iran official have little contact

"I don't know which woman he was afraid of, the woman in the red dress or the secretary of state," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday, regarding the actions of Iran's Manouchehr Mottaki.

The dinner episode Thursday night amid a major regional conference on Iraq perfectly revealed how hard it was to bring together the top diplomats of the two rival nations.

In a diplomatic turning point for the Bush administration, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Thursday with Syria's foreign minister and expressed US concerns about the country's porous border with Iraq.

"I didn't lecture him and he didn't lecture me," Rice said after the first Cabinet-level talks in years between the countries.

Prospects dimmed for a more dramatic face-to-face discussion between Rice and Iran's foreign minister. "We haven't planned and have not asked for a bilateral meeting, nor have they asked us," she said.

The administration has resisted talks with Syria and Iran despite the recommendations of allies, the Iraq Study Group and US lawmakers from both parties.

Meanwhile, Iraq's neighbours on Friday negotiated a declaration that would pledge support for Iraq's embattled Shia-led government in return for more inclusion of Sunni Arabs in the political process.

A draft copy of the six-page declaration said the summit participants would agree to support Iraq's government as long as it ensured the "basic right of all Iraqi citizens to participate peacefully in the political process through the country's political system."

"It's a start," Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said after the 30-minute session.