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France weighs into row over Iran attending Geneva 2 Syria talks

Iran cannot attend this week's Geneva 2 talks on Syria unless it "explicitly accepts" the establishment of a transitional government, French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius said on Monday as a row erupted over the UN's invitation to Tehran to attend. Paris denied a claim that it had banned a Syrian government delegation from flying through its air space.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (L) with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (L) with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Reuters/Sana/Handout via Reuters
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The day after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that Iran was to be invited to the Syria peace talks, Fabius weighed in with a statement that declared that attendance was conditional on " explicitly accepting" the goals set out in the UN invitation to the talks, namely "the establishment of a transitional government in Syria with full executive powers".

"It is obvious that no country can take part in the conference unless it expressly accepts its mandate," Fabius said.

Iran, which supportes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, has pledged to play a "positive and constructive role" in efforts to end Syria's worsening three-year civil war.

Meeting in Brussels on Monday, European Union foreign ministers, including Fabius, did not mention Iran but repeated their insistence that the point of the conference is to to establish a "transitional government with full executive powers", inclucing over security, the military and intelligence.

Fabius's ministry on Monday "categorically denied" a claim that it had refused authorisation for a plane carrying the Syrian government delegation to the talks to use its airspace.

A Syrian official earlier told the AFP news agency that Paris had banned the flight from flying over its territory on Tuesday, adding that France is doing "all it can to make the Geneva conference fail".

French officials said that the auhtorisation would be issued on Monday afternoon.

Assad himself accused France of becoming a "proxy state" for Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

"How can petrodollars make Western officials, particularly in France, sell their principles and sell the principles of the French Revolution in return for a few billion dollars?" he asked rhetorically in an interview with AFP.

France is the most enthusiastic European backer of the Syrian opposition and has growing economic ties with the Gulf states.

Assad claimed that European policy on the Middle East is dictated by Washington.

"Ever since 2001 and the terrorist attacks on New York, there has been no European policy-making to speak of," he said. "In the West, there is only an American policy, which is implemented by some European countries."

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