TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's highest authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Wednesday the Islamic Republic would hold talks with the United States about Iraq to remind Washington of its duty to provide security there.
But, in his first public comments on the proposed Iranian-U.S. talks in Baghdad, he said Iran would not hold talks on broader issues until Washington changed its policies, state television quoted him as saying.
"Iran's policy of not negotiating and having relations with America remains the same until the policies of this arrogant government change," said Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state under Iran's system of clerical rule.
"(These) negotiations (on Iraq) are only about the duty of the occupier regarding the security of Iraq."
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had previously said Iran had agreed to talk to the United States about Iraq to help the Iraqi people. Washington has said U.S. and Iranian officials will meet in the next few weeks in Baghdad about Iraqi security issues.
"The (Iranian) Foreign Ministry, at the request of the Iraqi government, decided to remind them (the United States) of their duties and responsibilities ... in a face-to-face discussion," Khamenei said in the comments reported by state TV.
The supreme leader said Baghdad had appealed to Tehran to hold the talks. He added that the United States, which broke ties with Iran shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution, had also made a written request for talks.
U.S. officials accuse Iran of stirring up violence in Iraq, a charge Tehran dismisses. Washington also says Tehran is seeking to build atomic bombs, while Iran insists its nuclear program has only civilian aims.
The Supreme Leader of Iran, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has approved talks with the United States to deal with the security situation in Iraq but has said the discussions won't involve other outstanding issues between the two countries such as Iran's nuclear program.

Khamenei, as the supreme leader of Iran, has the final say in all state issues under Iran's Rule of the Islamic Jurisprudence.  Moreover, he is the highest-ranking Islamic cleric in Iran and also has a considerable following in Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and other parts of the Islamic world.

Khamenei make his remarks in a speech in Mashhad where he said, "Iran's policy of not negotiating and having relations with America remains the same until the policies of this arrogant government change."

The United States and Iran have broken diplomatic relations since the Iran hostage crisis in 1980.  Tehran has in the past called the United States the "Great Satan" and the enemy of Islam.  Khamenei believes that rejecting a thorough discussion of all the disagreements between the United States and Iran is a "firm, logical and defendable policy."  The Leader of Islamic Revolution said,

These most recent remarks by Khamenei come after the brief exchange of greetings by Condoleezza Rice and Manouchehr Mottaki at the Sharm el-Sheikh conference in Egypt without a substantive discussion of the security situation of Iraq.

In 2005, Khamenei declared that the United States was responsible for terrorism in Iraq and said, "The presence of aliens in Iraq is harmful and destructive to the Iraqi people."  He also exhorted the American forces to withdraw.