US still trying for talks with the resistance

Al-Quds al-Arabi says Iraqi president Talabani had to postpone his trip to Tehran because the Baghdad airport was closed as a result of the Baghdad curfew, which is still continuing. He said if the airport is open on Sunday he will go then.

Al-Hayat says it doesn't know whether it was Damascus, Baghdad, or both, that rejected the idea of a three-country summit in Tehran, which had been proposed by Iran, but in any event it isn't going to happen.

As for the planned meeting between Prime Minister Maliki and Bush in Amman, Al-Hayat has the following comments: First, (presumably relying on its Washington sources) it says this is in the context of American efforts to expand the range of solution-talks to include those countries it has up to now accused of supporting the violence (Syria and Iran), without explaining how a meeting with Maliki and the King of Jordan is supposed to help with this.

Next, the Al-Hayat reporter says this:

Iraqi government sources talked about expected meetings in Amman between Maliki and representatives of armed groups, whom Akram al-Hakim, minister of national dialogue described as prepared to join in the political process.
However, it appears the choice of Amman for the Maliki-Bush meeting was unrelated to the moves by the [Iraqi] government people and Americans to set up meetings with leaders of armed groups and former Baathists. It was undoubtedly the facts on the ground and the security collapse, which hasn't spared the Green Zone, that led to the choice of Amman as a substitute location for the Maliki-Bush meeting, which will also include King Abdullah of Jordan.

The implication here is that the Americans and Maliki are continuing to try for meetings with armed resistance groups. The journalist's point is that it is just a coincidence that the expected meeting place for coming meetings of that type is also Amman.

Abdulbari Atwan, writing in Al-Quds al-Arabi this morning, also takes as a basic assumption that the Americans are trying to get talks of that nature going. Atwan writes:

The noble Iraqi resistance, which has brought about the failure of the American occupation project and discouraged its collaborators, should not enter into negotiations with the American representatives who are currently making efforts in this direction, except on the basis of complete withdrawal; or [into negotiations] with the government except on the basis of their recognition of their direct responsibility for what has happened to Iraq, preparatory to their being turned over to [a court of] justice as war criminals...