Russia Insists Iran Attends Syria Talks

Secretary of State John Kerry publicly clashed with his Russian counterpart Monday over whether Iran—a major military backer of the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad —should attend a peace conference in Switzerland later this month.

At a news conference with Mr. Kerry and a top United Nations official, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov renewed his country's call for Iran to be allowed to attend the Syria peace talks, known as Geneva II, to be held Jan. 22.

Mr. Lavrov cited Tehran's influence in the region and branded U.S. opposition to Iran's presence at the negotiating table as "ideological."

"Iran's participation or nonparticipation isn't a question of ideology," Mr. Kerry responded. "It is a question of common sense."

For now, Iran doesn't meet U.S. criteria to attend the conference, Mr. Kerry said.

Tehran would only be welcome at Geneva II, he said, if it accepted negotiating terms laid out in a previous round of talks, including the creation of a transitional government that would exclude Mr. Assad and his loyalists.