Preparations are under way for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to meet with Syria's foreign minister during the upcoming two-day
international conference in Sharm El-Sheikh on Iraq, an Egyptian official said Wednesday.

Rice and her Syrian counterpart, Walid Moallem, could meet as early as Thursday, said the Egyptian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak to the media.

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Separately, Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari did not rule out the possibility that the American could also meet with Iranian officials here.

There will be an Iranian-American or Syrian-American meetings, and all the parties have expressed their enthusiasm for these meetings, Zebari told reporters in this Red Sea resort.

He did not elaborate.

The conference, which is set to begin Thursday, is expected to bring together officials from Iraq, the United States, Iran, Russia, China, Europe and Arab nations.

The meetings have also raised the possibility of rare high-level talks involving Syria, Iran and the U.S.

Earlier Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Tehran has still not decided whether to accept face-to-face talks with the United States on the sidelines of the conference.

This case is under review, no final decision has been made yet in this regard, Mottaki said in Tehran.

The U.S. accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and supporting Shiite militias in neighboring Iraq - charges Tehran denies.

Rice has stressed that she has not ruled out substantive high-level talks with Syria or Iran despite strong resistance in the Bush administration to that kind of engagement.

"If we encounter each other and wander into other subjects I'm prepared to at least address them in terms of American policy," Rice said earlier Wednesday of potential discussions with Iran's foreign minister.

If Rice meets with Moallem it would be the first such high-level talks since the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, for which many blame Damascus. Syria denies it had anything to do with the killing, but U.S. and European officials have since shunned the Damascus regime.

The U.S. also accuses Syria's leaders of allowing terrorists to use their country as a staging area for sending fighters, weapons and other material into Iraq - allegations Damascus denies.

On Monday, Syrian President Bashar Assad stressed his country's role in the region, predicting that the U.S. vision for a new Middle East would fail as the region's conflicts continue to escalate.

Results until now do not seem in favor of this project, and what we are seeing now in the east is a resisting Iraq, and in the west a resisting Lebanon, and in the south a resisting Palestinian people, Assad said. And we in Syria are in the heart of all these events