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Russia: Don’t make ‘mistake’ of excluding Iran from Syria peace talks
By Mick Krever, CNN
Russia warned on Tuesday that the U.S. and international community should not make the mistake of excluding Iran from upcoming Syria peace talks.
“Whether Iran is in the room or not … it’s going to be a player in Syria,” Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vitaly Churkin told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “So it’s better to have it in the room.”
The other option, he said, is to “alienate Iran once again.”
“That mistake has been made a number of times before,” he said. “Let’s not repeat it.”
Meanwhile, Iran, the United States, Russia, and four other world powers reached an interim agreement on Iran’s nuclear program this past weekend. Negotiators hope that the deal will lead to a permanent, comprehensive accord.
“Now the nuclear deal has been made, and the United States engaged Iran both multilaterally and bilaterally,” Churkin said.
“We believe that Iran should be invited … but the United States is against.”
The U.S. has expressed openness to Iran attending the new round of talks, but would like to see Iran accept the framework of an existing agreement that calls for a transitional government to be formed by mutual consent of all sides.
The so-called Geneva II conference called for January is aimed at getting both the Assad regime and the opposition to agree to a transitional government as a first step.
But right now, the two sides are as far apart as ever – and crucially, it’s not even clear who, if anyone, will attend from the much-fractured opposition.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on Tuesday that his country was ready to attend.
“We have said all along that if Iran is invited, we will participate without any preconditions,” Zarif said.
Ambassador Churkin noted that both U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, as well as the top U.N. official on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, and his predecessor, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, support Iran’s attendance.
Despite the travails in getting the conference to take place, Churkin said that his “gut feeling” was that the talks would take place “unless there is a major provocation.”
“The danger now is an effort by the opposition to reverse the military situation, and to have some military gains,” he said. “Then things can go badly, and in the absence of unity among the opposition, then the convening of the conference may be at risk.”
He said it was crucial that the opposition unify and be represented, and said Russia was helping with that effort.
Russia was also an important member of negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program.
Churkin hailed that deal as “very serious” and a “great achievement” for all sides involved, which presented a “real opportunity” to put the world at ease about a potential Iranian nuclear weapon.
“If it were to happen, and we believe that there is a very good chance of that, then this threat to Israel, which has been hanging over their heads for such a long time, will be taken care of,” he said.
“So I think that the Israelis and other doubters should give everybody an opportunity – those who are involved in the actual negotiations – to move ahead on this deal.”
@camanpour on Twitter
all of these people who say they are the world's governments, hahahahaha, only if you listen to them.
how dumb can obama really be--iran is taking over the middle east and we just gave them the keys to the car-it will be iran as the top dog against saudi and israel--this is sad. it is like obama saying the 5,000,000 who had their insurance cancelled was only a small percent when he knew that soon or at least after the elections next year there will be 80,000,000 prospects for obamacare because obama will rule that none of the companies insurance meets "the obamacare standards". this 80,000,000 plus what has happened will make us have a socialize health care system which was the real goal. Next will be energy and then education.l
Regime of Iran gave 4 billion dollars credit to the criminal Al-assad to kill the innocent Syrian kids and women!
Any proof of your claim about Assad's tyranny?
Meanwhile some terrorists supported by US via Quatar and Saudi Arabia – eats hearts of KIA soldiers.
How you can trust the regime of Iran?.
Just Two days after big deal !! agreement with them, both Rouhani and Zaif claimed today that there is no restriction for Enriching Uranium!!
Kerry also claimed that Iran can not enrich the Uranium!!
Who is telling the truth!? What was the agreement for?! Can anybody explain!
Russia made billions of dollars from the Iranian tax payers to erase the Obama Red lines and save the criminal regimes of Iran and Syria that have been killed Thousands of its own people and force the millions of others run away from their own countries.
Hey-hey, the US best friend, Quatar is absolute monarchy, non democratic at all. They cut hands as penalty for thief. Why US still support it? Where is US style democracy in Quatar? And how you can say anything about Russia in this case?
yes yes, and kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the most democratic country in the middle east.
Who really cares what the Muslims do to each other. They have been killing each other for 2000 years – boring zzzzzzzzzzzz
billy, do not show you ignorance – islam is only 1600 years old. west should stop supporting certain countries in the middle east and then there will be peace
FULL interview of the Russian Ambassador, NOT CENSORED by CNN is here:
http://www.russiaun.ru/ru/news/intrvw_amnpr
CNN has deleted quite a few important moments. Enjoy the freedom of speach in the US style.
The reason why the countries in the middle east are always at war with each other is because they do not have a non-muslim neighbour other than Israel.. If there was one, they would have joined together and fought that non-muslim country..Now since all of them are Muslim/Islamic countries, they have no way but to fight amongst each other..and they are all fighting for peace...the eternal peace.
Yeah, right, Muslim fought two Word Wars with each other, the colonial city states of Muslim were killing each other in Europe for three hundred years, before that Byzantine Muslims massacred East European Muslims and before that Muslim Armies of Rome went around Western Europe killing Barbarian Muslims in the world.
Zarif today told: We continue to construct the heavy water station in city of Arak!!!
Can somebody explain what was the super deal agreement about?!
Obamas top aid, Valerie Jarrett was born in Iran.
Kerry's son in law is also was born in Iran.
Is that reason the USA foreign policy to the fascist regimes of Iran and its friend Syria is so soft?
yeah this is very american to put labels on others. do you even know what 'fascist' is? and what word 'regime' actually means?
O, it's perfect. Interview with Mr. Churkin was edited, and many really important things was cutted... Where is your "freedom of speech" guys?
yup this is what they did
Why did you cut some answers of russian diplomat to the most actual questions of the situation in Syria? Is it censorship or position of CNN show only one opinion?
It's not an objective news coverage.it's shame.
CNN cut out very important parts of the interview. There is a scandal in Russian media about it... Have a look here
http://www.newsru.com/world/28nov2013/cnn.html
Oleg, you posted like to an article written in Russian. Hardly anyone on this site can read Russian.
Yes, I know. But try to use Google translation of the site. With mistakes, but it will give you a clue.
here is the interview in english, uncut
http://www.russiaun.ru/ru/news/intrvw_amnpr
Hm, CNN is hiding important part of the interview. http://translate.google.com.ua/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=uk&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsru.com%2Fworld%2F28nov2013%2Fcnn.html
О, наши почитали утренние новости 🙂
FULL interview of the Russian Ambassador, NOT CENSORED by CNN is here:
http://www.russiaun.ru/ru/news/intrvw_amnpr
CNN has deleted quite a few important moments. Enjoy the freedom of speach in the US style.
Iran will not dismantle any of its nuclear facilities as part of an effort to reach a long-term agreement to limit its nuclear development, Iranian Islamic regime President Hassan Rouhani said in an interview published Friday in The Financial Times.
Asked during the interview if dismantling Iran's nuclear facilities was a "red line," Rouhani said: "100 percent."!!
Zarif in another interview: We will decide our Uranium enrichment percentage after 6 months agreement!!
Can somebody explain what was the deal agreement?!
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