Zarif, Ibrahimi Discuss Syria Talks

Local Editor

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif and international envoy to Syria al-Akhdar Ibrahimi discussed the Syria crisis after negotiators failed to agree on Tehran's role in upcoming talks, the ministry said Saturday.

Zarif and Ibrahimi talked by phone "about the latest on the Geneva 2 conference" - a Russian-US initiated forum scheduled for January 22 seeking to end the war in Syria, the foreign ministry website said.
Zarif, it said, "insisted on a political solution" that includes talks between the parties to the conflict.

The website did not give any other details, or say when the phone conversation took place.
On Friday, Ibrahimi said negotiators failed to reach agreement on whether Iran should be invited to the peace talks in Switzerland next month, but that Tehran was not yet "off the list" of participants.
"On Iran, we haven't agreed yet. It's no secret that we in the United Nations welcome the participation of Iran, but our partners in the United States are still not convinced that Iran's participation would be the right thing," said Ibrahimi, who is tasked by the United Nations with brokering peace talks.

Source: News agencies, Edited by website team