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LONDON — As Western leaders on Thursday denounced the latest reported massacre in Syria , moves were afoot to bring Iran into international efforts towarda peaceful resolution of the conflict. In more than a year of unrest and repression, Iran has beenregarded — at least in the West — as part of theproblem rather than part of the solution. Tehran has been accused of supplying the regime of President Basharal-Assad with weapons and money to enable its long-standing Syrianally to pursue a violent crackdown in which more than 10,000 peopleare said to have died. Now, Kofi Annan, the international peace envoy whose ceasefire planhas been left in tatters by the continued violence, wants theIranians at the table whenever world and regional leaders meet todevelop a new strategy to end the conflict. Mr. Annan, a former United Nations secretary general, was onThursday presenting the U.N. with a Plan B to resolve the crisis that would attempt to takeaccount of Russian and Chinese resistance to forced regimechange in Damascus. According to reports from the U.N., the plan would involve theestablishment of an international contact group that could for thefirst time include Tehran. Conventional wisdom in the West is that Iran cannot afford to loseits key ally in the region and will do almost anything to keepPresident Assad in power. Other commentators have argued, however, that Tehran will notpermanently tie itself to a failing regime, particularly as thefocus of its regional influence has switched to neighboring Iraq. Iran was disinclined to be the benefactor of an Assad regime runamok in a time of democratic hope in the Middle East, accordingto Alex Vatanka , a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Tehran is said to have been highly critical of the Syriangovernment in its direct contacts with Damascus, although it haspublicly followed the Assad line that the unrest is being stirredby outside conspirators and terrorists. Russia backs the idea of making Iran part of the solution, givenits high level of influence in Syria. But initial reaction fromWestern capitals has been negative. Sergey Lavrov , the Russian foreign minister, pressing for Iran to be included inany future international meeting aimed at ending the Syrian crisis,said: "We believe it is necessary to assemble a meeting ofstates with real influence on different opposition groups. Thereare not that many." Western politicians are cool to the idea on two levels: firstly,Iran is seen as too sympathetic to the Damascus regime to act as ahelpful player and, secondly, its participation in high-level talkson Syria could complicate continuing efforts to resolve its owndispute with the international community over its nuclear program. Iranian participation would contradict the objective of puttingstrong pressure on Syria, said Laurent Fabius , the French foreign minister, at a conference on Syria in Istanbulthis week. It would also have an impact on discussions on theIranian nuclear question, he said. And that is undesirable. Britain s foreign minister, William Hague, was equally dismissive,saying the inclusion of Iran would be unworkable. "This is a country that is supporting some of theunacceptable violence and supporting the Syrian regime in what itis doing to the Syrian people and that would cause a greatdifficulty, Mr. Hague said. Iran placed itself alongside Russia and China on Thursday, signinga joint communique at the end of a summit of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Beijing that rejected military intervention into the MiddleEast s affairs, "forcing a handover of power or usingunilateral sanctions." Iran has yet to pronounce on where it would stand on an invitationto join a future conference. For the moment, it is sticking by itsfamiliar conspiratorial rhetoric. As the Iranian Parliament speaker Ali Larijani put it on Wednesday: "Enemies are playing with a ball offire by planning various plots against the line of resistance inthe region and it will absolutely hurt themselves and the occupyingforce of the Zionist regime.". The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Ferro Silicon Zirconium Manufacturer , Magnesium Ferro Silicon, and more. For more , please visit Ferro Silicon Alloys today!
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