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UN invites Iran to Syria peace talks | UN invites Iran to Syria peace talks |
(35 minutes later) | |
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has invited Iran to take part in Syrian peace talks this week in Switzerland - an offer Tehran has accepted. | |
Mr Ban said he had received assurances that Iran would play a positive role in securing a transitional government. | |
The so-called Geneva II talks, to open in the town of Montreux, are due to start on Wednesday. | |
Syria's government and the main political opposition group earlier agreed to attend the meeting. | |
The three-year conflict in Syria has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people. | |
An estimated two million people have fled the country and some 6.5 million have been internally displaced. | |
US reservations | |
On Sunday, Mr Ban said that Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had pledged that Tehran would play "a positive and constructive" role if it was asked to participate. | |
Mr Ban added that he believed strongly that Iran had to be part of any solution to the crisis in neighbouring Syria. | |
Shortly afterwards, Iran said it accepted the invitation. Tehran had earlier insisted it wanted to take part but without preconditions. | |
There had been a dispute over whether Iran, a crucial ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, should be taking part in the talks. | |
The UN and Russia had advocated a role for Tehran, but the US had reservations because of its failure to endorse the 2012 Geneva Communique, detailing Syria's political transition process. | |
Washington is also concerned about Iran's deployment of military personnel in Syria, and its support of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, which had sent fighters to bolster Mr Assad's forces. |