The United States backed down on Monday from its policy of seeking direct contacts with Iran on ways to ease unrest in neighbouring Iraq, saying that channel of communications 'didn't work out'.
"We went through a period where there was an offer of that channel of communications," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, referring to contacts between the US ambassador in Baghdad and Iranian authorities.
"It didn't work out for a variety of different reasons," he said of the contacts between Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the Iranians, which had been authorised by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"If in the future we want to avail ourselves of that channel, then that is certainly a possibility, but I don't think that right now that is something that is under consideration," he said.
McCormack was speaking shortly after President George W. Bush insisted Washington will engage Iran directly only if it agrees to UN demands to suspend uranium enrichment activities that the US and other believe are aimed at producing nuclear weapons.
"If the Iranians want to have a dialogue with us, we have shown them the way forward, that is, for them to verifiably suspend their enrichment activities," Bush said as he met here with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Following the stinging loss of control over Congress for his Republican Party, Bush is under intense pressure to reassess his policy on Iraq, where sectarian violence and attacks on US troops continue unabated more than three years after the ouster of dictator Saddam Hussein.
Many politicians and experts have urged Bush to end the three-decade-old US policy of isolating Iran and engage the Islamic Republic about ways to lessen the violence in Iraq.
The administration has offered to enter direct, high-level talks with Iran on a package of economic and political rewards if it complies with a UN resolution demanding the suspension of its uranium enrichment activity.
Iran has rejected the condition, insisting its nuclear program is only for production of electricity.
But in parallel with its refusal to discuss the nuclear issue directly with Tehran, Khalilzad had been authorised to discuss Iraq with officials in Iran, which Washington has accused backing anti-US insurgents in Iraq.