UN Chief says 'intensive and urgent discussions are underway' regarding Syria talks
20 January 2014, 19:31
UN leader Ban Ki-moon said Monday that 'urgent' talks on the Syria peace conference scheduled this week are being held after the Syrian opposition threatened to withdraw if Iran takes part.
'Intensive and urgent discussions are underway and I will have more to say about the situation later in the day,' Ban told the UN Security Council.
'For the moment let me just appeal again for all involved to keep the needs of the Syrian people foremost in mind,' he added.
Ban later cancelled planned comments to reporters as he returned to talks on the mounting crisis just two days before the start of the peace conference in Montreux, Switzerland.
He was to leave New York later Monday for Switzerland.
The UN secretary general announced Sunday that he had invited Iran to the first day of talks. The move unleashed a storm of controversy.
The Syrian National Coalition, the main opposition group, said it would boycott the event if Iran, a key backer of President Bashar al-Assad, takes part.
The United States has demanded that Iran back calls for a transitional government in Syria before it attends. Iran has rejected any conditions on its participation.
The US administration said the invitation should be withdrawn if Iran does not openly support a communique adopted at an international meeting in Geneva in June, 2012 calling for a transitional government.
Britain and France also believe that Iran must publicly accept the Geneva communique before it takes part, their UN ambassadors told reporters.
'For the moment, the ball is in Iran's court. Iran must explicitly accept Geneva I,' said France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud.
Ban had joined Russia in calling for Iran's attendance at the peace talks.
'I believe strongly that Iran needs to be part of the solution to the Syrian crisis,' Ban said Sunday.
He added that Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif had repeatedly assured him in talks at the weekend that Iran would 'play a very positive and constructive role' in efforts to end the three year-old civil war.
The United States and Russia, also a key Assad backer, played a key role in persuading the government and opposition to attend the talks.
Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said that Ban had consulted with the Russian and US governments before issuing the invitation to Iran. 'Of course everybody was consulted,' Churkin told reporters.
Despite the US protests over the invitation, a senior US official said that US Secretary of State John Kerry had spoken with Ban at the weekend.
Voice of Russia, AFP
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