Velayati Wants Iran, France Cooperation on Syria

Iran's former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati would "cooperate" with France to resolve the conflict in Syria should he win the June 14 presidential election, he said in an exclusive interview with Agence France Presse.

"My offer, if I am victorious, is that Iran and France sit together to talk, and work together, to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis," Velayati said. "I am ready to do it."

Iran has strongly backed Syrian President Bashar Assad since the beginning of the armed uprising to topple his regime. The conflict there has killed more than 94,000 people since March 2011, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

France, along with Western and Arab countries, accuses Iran and Hizbullah of supplying weapons and sending military forces to help the Syrian regime against rebels.

"France has lost its chance for a positive intervention" to solve the Syrian crisis, said Velayati who served as Iran's top diplomat from 1981 to 1997.

But he added that having a "long history of relations with Syria and Lebanon" puts France in a "better position" than other Western countries to resolve the Syria crisis.

The European Union deeply divided, decided last week to lift the embargo on arms to the Syrian opposition, under pressure from London and, to a lesser extent, Paris.

France has also expressed reservations over a role for Iran in next month's proposed peace conference in Geneva, which aims to end the conflict by bringing together representatives from the Syrian regime and rebels, with its foreign minister Laurent Fabius saying that "Iran does not want a political solution."

Velayati, the international affairs advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the Geneva meeting presented "an opportunity," in a reference to the meeting initiated by Washington and Moscow for negotiations between Syria's regime and opposition to reach a political solution.

Asked about Iran's stance should Geneva lead to progress, he said Tehran wanted a "political and not a military solution. Iran will not make a decision on behalf of the Syrian government. If they accept (the outcome of Geneva), we will support it."

Iran said last month it was willing to attend the conference, which was originally scheduled for June, arguing all influential parties must be included in the process for it to be a success.

Velayati reiterated that the Islamic republic is not seeking nuclear weapons that he said are banned by the Islamic religion.

Iran's controversial nuclear program has for years been a point of contention between the Islamic republic and the P5+1 countries, the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany, who suspect the drive is aimed at developing atomic weapons.

"We have announced repeatedly that we are against developing nuclear bombs," he told AFP.

"Our supreme leader says developing a bomb is religiously forbidden," said Velayati, referring to a much-debated religious decree against nuclear weapons issued by Khamenei.