“We have reviewed the invitation, and it was decided that the foreign minister would attend the talks”, Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham was quoted as saying in media reports.
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Secretary of State John Kerry will travel Thursday to Vienna for the talks, which will take mostly take place Friday, Kirby said.
Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The latest attempt to stifle a Syrian civil war – in which 250,000 people have been killed and millions rendered homeless – follows other attempts in Geneva that came to nothing.
This will be the first time that Iran will sit down at the negotiating table with the United States to work out a peaceful solution to the conflict in Syria.
The Syrian conflict erupted in 2011 after al-Assad cracked down on demonstrators protesting the president’s rule.
Iran’s inclusion marks a crucial shift after it was excluded from earlier talks mainly because of opposition from the United States and Iranian rival Saudi Arabia. He has claimed Washington was not serious about crushing IS and has not not stopped Saudi Arabia and Turkey backing Sunni extremists.
But the discussions could “bring us closer to the road towards a political solution”, he said.
But Assad yesterday renewed his accusation that Western states including France were supporting “terrorist” groups in his country. Besides significant financial aid to Assad, Iran has acknowledged that its Revolutionary Guard officers are on the ground in Syria in an advisory role.
Meanwhile, violence continues to rage between Syria’s rebel groups and the Islamic State, and in the Kurdish region in northern Syria, even drawing in Turkey.
Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and several top European and Arab diplomats will be attending, a familiar cast that up to now hasn’t included any Iranian representatives.
It was not clear whether any invitation had been issued to either the Syrian government or the opposition.
A number of countries that support Syrian rebels will meet in Vienna on Friday in a bid to reach a political solution for Syria’s ongoing war.
Britain’s Foreign Office said the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan will also be present. Its support for the embattled Syrian leader has raised tensions with regional powers supporting the opposition, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey. “The likely results will be to further radicalize the population, prolong the fighting, and perhaps strengthen the illusion on Assad’s part that he can maintain indefinitely his hold on power”.
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Obama administration officials quietly began shifting their position following the emergence of Russian Federation – also a backer of the Assad regime and an increasingly close ally of Tehran – as a major new player in Syria with its stepped-up military campaign there in recent weeks.
