Moving quickly to explain the Obama administration's policies toward Iran and the Middle East, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held separate talks Tuesday in Washington with her British and German counterparts as European governments prepare for a major shift in U.S. strategy on these and other security issues.

These are Clinton's first high-profile meetings since her appointment Jan. 21, and they come during a week of hectic diplomacy for the administration.

After Clinton's meetings with David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, the United States will send diplomats to join those from the six countries involved in trying to persuade Iran to halt its nuclear program. Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany will meet Wednesday near Frankfurt, a German Foreign Ministry official said.

Then on Friday, a delegation of senior U.S. diplomats will travel to southern Germany for the annual Munich Security Conference, where there will be intensive bilateral meetings during which the United States hopes to convince Europe to accept a much greater role in Afghanistan, and to support U.S. efforts to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, according to U.S. officials.

President Barack Obama has already sent George Mitchell, his special Middle East envoy, to Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories. And on Sunday, Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, will travel to the region after attending the Munich conference.

Clinton's meetings with Miliband and Steinmeier focused on Iran, Afghanistan and the Middle East, according to Robert Wood, acting State Department spokesman.

"Afghanistan is central to this administration's foreign policy," he said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has proposed increasing the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from the 20,000 now deployed to about 50,000, while asking NATO countries to contribute more troops, especially in the southern provinces, where much of the insurgency is taking place.

It is not clear how far Germany will go in supporting Obama's plans for Afghanistan. Germany has 4,500 troops there, the majority based in the northern province of Kunduz. Despite pleas from NATO to send troops to the south, Germany has refused to lift restrictions that would enable its troops to play a more active role in combat.

The administration has also signaled a shift in policy with regard to Iran. Obama last week told Al Arabiya, the Arab television channel based in Dubai, that he was prepared to talk directly with Iran. Diplomatic relations were broken off nearly three decades ago after students supporting the Islamic regime, then new, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Berlin, which only reluctantly imposed sanctions on Iran during the Bush administration, has welcomed Obama's initiative.

Only recently, the German government agreed to cut its export guarantees for companies trading with Iran, after repeated pressure from the United States and Israel. German exports to Iran increased by 10.5 percent during the first eleven months of last year, amounting to €3.6 billion, or $4.6 billion, according to the German national statistics office.

Arriving in Washington, Steinmeier said "now is the time to formulate a new trans-Atlantic agenda with the United States which will enable us to tackle the challenges of the future together."

Germany's main interests are reviving talks on arms control and climate change. Steinmeier is also hoping that the administration will abandon plans to deploy its anti-ballistic missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

By Judy Dempsey, International Herald Tribune, February 3, 2009