Under pressure from the United States, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has withdrawn an invitation for Iran to participate in a Syria peace conference.
U.N. officials had surprised the U.S. with the invitation, prompting American leaders to insist that Iran be excluded because it had not agreed to the conditions for the talks, to be held in Montreux, Switzerland.
The invitation also angered Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival, which threatened to boycott the talks if it wasn’t rescinded.
The conditions for the conference were outlined in a communiqué from a 2012 meeting in Geneva. Ki-Moon’s about-face came just 48 hours before the start of the conference. Read more at The New York Times.
{Andy Heller-Matzav.com Newscenter}
