United Nations Withdraws Iran Invitation to Syria Talks
By MICHAEL R. GORDON, SOMINI SENGUPTA and ALAN COWELL
Under pressure from the United States, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations
secretary general, rescinded Iran’s invitation to the peace talks, which
had threatened to derail the meeting before it began.
WASHINGTON
— Under intense American pressure, the United Nations on Monday
withdrew an invitation to Iran to attend the much-anticipated Syria
peace conference, reversing a decision announced a day earlier.
Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon, whose decision to invite Iran had threatened to unravel
the Syria talks less than 48 hours before the scheduled start, issued a
statement on Monday rescinding the invitation. The United States had
said it was surprised by the invitation because Iran had not agreed to
conditions for the talks, to be held on Wednesday in Montreux,
Switzerland.
Mr.
Ban contended that he had been privately assured by the Iranians that
they would respect the conditions. But in their public statements,
Iranian officials said Iran had been invited with no such conditions
attached.
“Given
that it has chosen to remain outside that basic understanding, he has
decided that the one-day Montreux gathering will proceed without Iran’s
participation,” Mr. Ban’s spokesman said in the statement.
The
invitation also angered the Syrian opposition and Saudi Arabia, Iran’s
regional rival and a major backer of the Syrian insurgency, and they
threatened to boycott the talks.
The
United States’ longstanding position has been that Iran, a major backer
of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, must publicly endorse the
mandate of the conference, which is outlined in a communiqué from a 2012
meeting in Geneva. That mandate says that the conference’s purpose is
to negotiate the establishment of a transitional administration that
would govern Syria by the “mutual consent” of Mr. Assad’s government and
the Syrian opposition.
“Since
Iran has not publicly and fully endorsed the Geneva communiqué,” a
State Department official told reporters Monday morning, “we expect the
invitation will be rescinded.”
Mr.
Ban’s reversal appeared to have salvaged the plan to proceed as
scheduled with the talks, which the United States, the United Nations
and Russia had been seeking to organize for months.
“As
we’ve stated many times, the purpose of the conference is the full
implementation of the Geneva communiqué,” Jen Psaki, a State Department
spokeswoman, said after Mr. Ban’s decision. “We are hopeful that, in the
wake of today’s announcement, all parties can now return to focus on
the task at hand, which is bringing an end to the suffering of the
Syrian people and beginning a process toward a long overdue political
transition.”
The
Syrian political opposition, which had threatened to boycott the talks
if Iran were invited, also said it would attend. But Mr. Ban’s reversal
was a diplomatic embarrassment to the United Nations and to others who
had wanted Iran to participate, including Russia.
The
Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said in Moscow earlier on
Monday that leaving Iran out of the talks would be an “unforgivable
mistake.”
“Negotiations
involve sitting at the table not just with those who you like, but with
those whose participation the solution depends on,” Mr. Lavrov said at a
joint appearance with the foreign minister of Norway.
The
United States and several of its allies have opposed Iran’s presence at
the conference in part because Iran has been a strong supporter of the
Assad government, sending it arms and paramilitary fighters from its
Quds force. Mr. Lavrov, in arguing for Iran’s inclusion, noted that
several other countries that directly backed one side in the conflict
were participating.
Lakhdar
Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, has long argued
that Iran, as a major regional power, should be included in the talks.
But he said last week that the decisions on whether to invite Iran had
to be made by consensus among the United States, the United Nations and
Russia.
For
his part, Mr. Assad said once again that he would not share power with
his adversaries or accept the creation of a transitional government.
Mr.
Assad said in an interview with Agence France-Presse that the talks in
Switzerland should focus on what he called “the war against terrorism”
in his country. He described the idea of sharing power as “totally
unrealistic,” and said there was a “significant” likelihood that he
would seek a new term as president in June.
While
he has made such remarks before, the timing of his latest comments
seemed to underscore the complexities facing negotiators in Switzerland,
despite months of preliminary negotiations to bring the combatants to
the table.
In
the region’s tangles of hostility, the invitation to Iran drew
immediate objections from both the exiled political opposition to Mr.
Assad and from Saudi Arabia, which is a key backer of the insurgency and
the arch rival of Iran, Mr. Assad’s main regional sponsor.
Mr.
Ban said on Sunday that Iranian officials had pledged to play “a
positive and constructive role,” implying that Tehran had accepted that
the negotiations were posited on the idea of a new political order in
Syria.
On
Monday, however, the Iranian state news media quoted a spokeswoman for
the Foreign Ministry in Tehran as saying, “We have always rejected any
precondition for attending the Geneva II meeting on Syria.”
Within
hours of Mr. Ban’s invitation to Iran, Syria’s political opposition
said it would not attend the peace conference unless the gesture was
rescinded.
“The
Syrian coalition announces that they will withdraw their attendance in
Geneva II unless Ban Ki-moon retracts Iran’s invitation,” a Twitter
message said, quoting Louay Safi, a coalition spokesman.
The
ultimatum came just a day after the opposition coalition, facing a
boycott by one-third of its members, voted to send a delegation to the
peace talks. The opposition has been under intense international
pressure, including from the United States government, to participate.
In
all, some 30 countries have been invited to Montreux for what may be a
largely ceremonial opening day of the peace talks. Two days later,
Syria’s government and opposition delegations are scheduled to move to
Geneva to continue talks, mediated by Mr. Brahimi.
Diplomats
and Middle East analysts say that if any breakthroughs are achieved,
they will take place in Geneva, not in the opening two days in Montreux.
Over all, the negotiations were not expected to yield major results,
except perhaps to open up certain parts of Syria to the delivery of
humanitarian aid.
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