“We have reviewed the invitation, and it was decided that the foreign minister would attend the talks”, Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said in a BBC News report.
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Fabius announced on Friday that he wants to hold a working dinner meeting with Western and Arab allies to discuss the Syrian crisis, noting that the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will not attend the Paris meeting.
The participation of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s chief backer adds a new dimension to the talks seeking an end to that country’s four-year-old civil war, a dimension unwelcome to many US lawmakers.
U.S. officials would not say which power would pass the invitation to Tehran and did not know if Iran would accept, but they said it would be welcome to attend if it did.
The US State Department said that Iran is a stakeholder in this process because of Tehran’s close relationship with President Assad.
Iran’s government has proposed a peaceful transition in Syria that would culminate in free, multi-party elections, but it has not been involved in multilateral peace talks.
“The [two] sides continued discussion of possible ways of settling the Syrian crisis with a focus on urgent steps towards establishing an intra-Syrian political dialogue”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Opposition groups, and their regional backers including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, say Mr Assad must leave power as a precondition for peace.
At last week’s meeting, Kerry said while “there will come a time perhaps” when Iran should participate in talks about Syria’s future, “we’re not at that moment at this point in time”. The Obama administration, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and others say most of the bombs are landing on moderate rebel militias, a few backed by the Central Intelligence Agency.
U.S. officials recently estimated that the IRGC only has about 2,000 troops in Syria, but other intelligence sources like the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran believe the numbers to be much higher.
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The Pentagon on Wednesday said it may step up its air strikes and even direct ground attacks by special forces against jihadists seeking to carve out an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
