Geneva II may fail without Iran

Russia warns the Geneva II conference on the Syrian crisis may fail unless both Iran and the Syrian opposition participate in the negotiations.

A Russian diplomat said on Monday that Iran, as one of the main allies of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, cannot be excluded from the talks merely due to the Syrian opposition’s hostility toward the Islamic Republic.

“The United States says that some of the Syrian opposition does not want Iran to sit at the negotiating table. But if the Syrian authorities are given the right to choose the [conference] participants by the same principle they may also veto and the event will not be representative. That won’t do,” the Russian official said.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for the Syrian opposition to contribute to the Geneva II talks. The disjointed opposition groups have not yet decided about their participation in the peace conference.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday and urged the leader of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces Ahmad Jarba “to assume responsibility and ensure the participation of the National Coalition within a representative delegation of the opposition in the upcoming forum with the purpose of bringing an end to the armed confrontation.”

“The Russian side spelled out its principled stand targeting the soonest possible launch of an inter-Syrian dialogue through the convocation of the international conference on January 22, 2014, with the participation of delegations from the Syrian government and the opposition without preconditions,” added the statement.