U.S. official eyes more Iran engagement, defends prisoner swap

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration would like to test whether there can be additional cooperation with Iran on other world issues and sees talks over the war in Syria as the main forum for that, a U.S. official said on Sunday.

"We believe that a test of whether Iran wants to engage constructively on regional issues is whether or not they can understand, over time, that the Syrian civil war is not going to be resolved so long as Bashar al-Assad is in power," the official told reporters on a conference call.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, also defended the prisoner swap between the United States and Iran against Republican criticism.

"If people want to say that they were for leaving these Americans in prison, they should say so. But the fact of the matter is, this was our opportunity to bring them home," he said.

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed, Julia Edwards, and Jeff Mason; Editing by Alan Crosby)