Via Fox News:
Iran has been invited to attend a meeting of foreign ministers in Switzerland ahead of internationally brokered peace talks between Syria’s warring factions, the United Nations said Sunday, a move that could potentially scuttle the war-torn nation’s negotiations.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he had issued the invitation to Iran after “speaking at length in recent days” with Iranian Foreign Minister Javid Zarif, who had “pledged that Iran would play a positive and constructive role in Montreux.”
But the Syrian National Coalition, which was under huge pressure from its western and Arab sponsors to attend the peace talks, reportedly blasted the United Nations’ announcement.
“The Syrian Coalition announces that they will withdraw their attendance in Geneva 2 unless Ban Ki-moon retracts Iran’s invitation,” National Coalition spokesman Louay Safi said in a Twitter post, Reuters reported.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had said he would welcome Iran’s participation — but only if Tehran endorsed earlier diplomatic agreements that called for a transitional government in Syria that would be created by mutual consent among the Syrian factions.