TEHRAN - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has said that Iran will consider the United States’ invitation to attend the upcoming Afghanistan conference.

“I do not say that we will not attend the Afghanistan conference. Rather, if we are invited, we will surely consider it,” he told Serbia’s national TV, RTS, the Foreign Ministry Public Relations Office reported on Saturday.
Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said that Iran would be invited to the international conference on Afghanistan.
“If we move forward with such a meeting, it is expected that Iran would be invited as a neighbor of Afghanistan,” Clinton told a news conference in Brussels after meeting NATO foreign ministers on March 3.
Mottaki made a reference to his recent to trip to Italy and pointed out, “According to the telephone conversation I had with the Italian foreign minister, (he) is going to visit Tehran soon. During this visit, in addition to the most important issues of concern for (both) sides, developments in and problems of Afghanistan and the conference will be discussed.”
However, establishing peace and security in Afghanistan requires a change in the U.S. approach, he observed.
“The fact is that the United States has committed many mistakes in Afghanistan over the course of all these years and should rectify them.”