Iran to participate in Syria talks in Geneva: UN envoy
The United Nations’ special envoy to Syria says Iran will take part in the upcoming talks over the Syrian crisis in the Swiss city of Geneva.
On Friday, Staffan de Mistura confirmed Iran’s participation in the Geneva talks due to kick off in Geneva on Monday.
De Mistura stressed that the upcoming event should not be deemed as the new round of negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition groups, but just as preliminary separate meetings with "as many parties as possible” to facilitate future negotiations.
He made the remarks just three days after Syria’s foreign-backed opposition group, the so-called Syrian National Coalition (SNC), voiced its readiness to attend the talks.
Both Iran and the Syrian opposition have not commented on the announcement so far.
Iran did not attend the Western-backed Geneva I and Geneva II peace conferences on Syria, which were respectively held in June 2012 and February 2014.
Prior to Geneva II conference, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon invited Iran to the talks, but later rescinded the invitation over pressure from the United States and its allies.
The two conferences ended in failure after foreign-sponsored opposition figures in the talks refused to discuss widespread terrorism in the country and persisted in demanding the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as a precondition.
Back in February, de Mistura said that Assad must be involved in any peaceful solution to the crisis in the Arab country, an utterance which greatly infuriated Syria’s foreign-backed opposition.
Syria has been grappling with a deadly crisis since March 2011. The violence fuelled by Takfiri groups has so far claimed the lives of over 222,000 people, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. New figures show that over 76,000 people, including thousands of children, lost their lives in Syria last year.
Over 7.2 million Syrians have also become internally displaced due to the ongoing crisis, according to the UN.
Takfiri terrorist groups, with members from several Western countries, control parts of land in Syria and Iraq, and have been carrying out horrific acts of violence, including public decapitations and crucifixions, against all communities such as Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians.
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