Summary UN-Arab League's Syria peace envoy held talks on Friday with key Damascus ally Iran.
GENEVA (AFP) - The UN-Arab League s Syria peace envoy held talks Friday with key Damascus ally Iran amid renewed efforts to bring the country s warring sides to the negotiating table.
Veteran mediator Lakhdar Brahimi had a half-hour discussion in Geneva with Iranian Foreign Minster Mohammad Jarad Zarif, Brahimi s spokeswoman told AFP.
"It was a follow-up to the meeting they had in Tehran on October 26 and 27, and to take stock of preparations for Geneva II," she said, referring to another long hoped-for Syria peace conference.
Zarif was in Geneva for a new round of negotiations with world powers including the United States and Russia on Iran s disputed nuclear programme.
Brahimi was scheduled Monday to hold high-level talks in the Swiss city with US and Russian officials.
The international community has struggled to broker talks between the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels battling him since a bloody March 2011 crackdown on Arab Spring-inspired protests.
The so-called Geneva II negotiations are meant to be based on talks held in June 2012, where world powers called for a Syrian transition government.
But the warring sides failed to agree on whether Assad or his inner circle could play a role, and amid spiralling fighting the proposal stalled, and plans for Geneva II have repeatedly been put on hold.
Iran is a key supporter of Assad, and Russia has sought to have Tehran involved in any peace talks, raising hackles in the West.
