Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta has welcomed the possible presence of Iran in a G8 foreign ministerial meeting on restoring stability in Afghanistan, Press TV reported.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini had planned to arrive in Tehran on Wednesday to invite his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki to the Group of Eight meeting slated to be held in the Italian city of Trieste in June.
Frattini called off his visit to Iran "following Tehran's conditional request to plan the protocol meeting in a city other than the capital, in Semnan."
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told reporters on Monday that Rome would dispatch an envoy to Tehran to set another date for Frattini's visit to the Islamic Republic.
The Afghan foreign minister responded on the issue by expressing hope that Mottaki would take part in the meeting in Italy on Afghanistan, saying the future of the region will depend on the close cooperation of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Fars news agency reported on Tuesday.
He added that the three neighboring countries -- Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan -- should make efforts to enhance cooperation in the campaign against terrorism and to establish security and stability.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted a summit on Sunday for his Pakistani and Afghan counterparts, Asif Ali Zardari and Hamid Karzai.
Security, stability, drug smuggling and other regional obstacles were among the issues discussed at the summit.
Almost eight years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the country still suffers from increasing violence, as the US-led NATO forces that ousted the Taliban in 2001 have yet to establish peace in Afghanistan.
The Taliban vowed last month to increase attacks on foreign soldiers as well as Afghan troops and officials.
Around 70,000 international soldiers, half of them Americans, are currently stationed in Afghanistan. The US government has ordered 21,000 additional troops to be sent to the country by summer.
In late March, President Barack Obama unveiled a new strategy to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda, saying he wants to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" the insurgency in the war-ridden country.
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