Brahimi Says No Deal on Iran's Role at Looming Syria Peace Talks
Negotiators failed Friday to reach an agreement on whether Iran should be invited to Syria peace talks in Switzerland next month, but Tehran is not yet "off the list", global peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said.
"On Iran, we haven't agreed yet. It's no secret that we in the United Nations welcome the participation of Iran, but our partners in the United States are still not convinced that Iran's participation would be the right thing," Brahimi told reporters after talks with U.S. and Russian officials.
"We have agreed that we will be talking a little bit more to see if we can come to an agreement about this," said the veteran Algerian mediator, tasked by the United Nations and the Arab League with brokering peace talks.
With a Syria peace conference finally due to start in Switzerland on January 22, there has been persistent wrangling over a role for key player Iran.
Besides lending direct support to Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iran is a leading backer of Hizbullah fighting alongside his forces.
"Iran is not off the list for the moment," insisted Brahimi, underlining that talks with Tehran had continued despite the deadlock and that he was convinced it could play a role even without officially attending the conference.
"The Iranian authorities have told us ... that yes, they would like to come to Geneva if it is possible, but if it is not possible it is not the end of the world, that they support this process, and they will work with us," he added.
Key Assad ally Russia has sought to have Iran at the table.
Moscow's strong support of Assad was highlighted Thursday when it blocked a U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council statement denouncing his government for its brutal offensive on the northern city of Aleppo, where scores of civilians have been killed in recent missile and "barrel bomb" attacks.
Western nations have pushed for Saudi Arabia to take part, and the Sunni kingdom is on the list of two dozen nations invited to the talks, Brahimi said.
Saudi Arabia and fellow Sunni monarchies in the Gulf -- such as Qatar -- are major backers of the rebels in the war which has morphed into a sectarian conflict between Islam's two main branches.
Brahimi and senior U.S. and Russian officials met behind closed doors at the United Nations in Geneva, then held broader talks with fellow U.N. Security Council permanent members Britain, China and France.
He then sat down with envoys from Syria's neighbors Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey -- who are due to attend the talks, and have taken in the bulk of the 2.4 million refugees from a war that to date has claimed over 126,000 lives.
Who will represent Syria's sides?
Beyond the Iran issue, all eyes are on the potential list of delegates from Syria's warring sides.
"The government has officially informed us that they already have formed their delegation," Brahimi said, adding that Damascus was set to make the delegates public soon.
Moscow's pointman on the Syria crisis, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov, met with Brahimi Friday in Geneva, and was later quoted by Russian news agencies as saying Foreign Minister Walid Muallem would lead Damascus' delegation.
The opposition, meanwhile, is split between the Syrian National Coalition, which backs the conference, and hardliners who say even talking to the Assad regime is a betrayal.
"We met representatives of the coalition and they told us they are reaching out to others, inside and outside of Syria," Brahimi said, with the delegation expected to be formed over coming days.
The Western-backed rebel Free Syrian Army, once the country's strongest armed opposition force but now increasingly marginalized by Islamists, called Friday for unity in the rebel ranks.
Having begun as a rag-tag collection of military defectors and civilians taking up arms to defend peaceful anti-Assad protesters from a March 2011 crackdown, the rebels have been increasingly torn by ideological differences and conflicting interests.
French President Francois Hollande warned that the conference could not be a success if it confirmed Assad in power.
The meeting cannot be "an objective in itself", he said on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels.
The so-called Geneva II conference is a follow-up to one held in the Swiss city in June 2012, where world powers called for a Syrian transition government.
But the warring sides failed to agree on whether Assad or his inner circle could play a role in the process, and amid spiraling fighting the plans for Geneva II were repeatedly put on hold.
The multinational January 22 opening session will be held in Montreux, a city northeast of Geneva, before talks involving the opposing Syrian delegations and Brahimi are to continue in Geneva from January 24.
Source: Agence France Presse, Associated Press
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