WASHINGTON - Iran's offer of a three-way summit meeting of the presidents of Iran, Iraq and Syria could be welcome, but Iran's Islamic government has a history of saying the right thing and doing something else, the United States said Monday.

In Baghdad, The Associated Press learned that Iran had asked presidents Jalal Talabani of Iraq and Bashar Assad of Syria for talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about possible cooperation to curb runaway violence that has taken Iraq to the verge of civil war and threatens to spread. Talabani was reported to have accepted and be planning to fly Saturday to Tehran.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said the decision whether to follow up must come from Iraq, not the United States. He said, however, that Iran and Syria will have to change their behavior before such a meeting could be productive.

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"Certainly we welcome continued discussion and dialogue," Casey said. "I think the thing that has concerned us, and still does concern us, is the fact that while there have been positive statements from the Iranian government about wishing to play a positive role in Iraq, those statements haven't been backed up by actions."

The same goes for the Syrians, Casey said.

"The issue here again is not the words, it's the actions that are taken. And certainly what we would like to see the Syrians do is take actions to, among other things, prevent foreign fighters from coming across the border into Iraq; and, again, to back up the positive words that they have with some real concrete steps."

The invitation appeared to be a tactical move by Iran to draw attention from expected moves from Washington to include Syria and Iran in a wider regional effort to clamp off violence in Iraq. More civilians have been killed in the first 20 days of November than in any other month since the AP began tallying figures in April 2005.