Iran, the main regional ally of the government in Damascus, says it is ready to take part in a peace conference on Syria but will not accept any preconditions.
The conference, known as Geneva II and initiated by Russia and the US, is scheduled to be held in the Swiss city on January 22 after a series of delays.
Its participants are still undecided.
"Iran's presence at the Geneva II conference will be important for resolving the Syrian crisis and we are ready to participate in the negotiations without any preconditions," Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
He was referring to a US demand that to win a place at the negotiations, Iran must first sign up to an agreement reached in Geneva last year that envisaged the creation of a transitional government in Damascus.
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Tehran has never endorsed that plan, and has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of Assad stepping aside before his current term expires in 2014.
But Syria's main opposition bloc, the National Coalition, says it will only attend the Geneva II talks on the condition President Bashar al-Assad has no role in the transitional phase.
According to France and the US, the second gathering could lead to the establishment of a transitional government.
In Tehran, Zarif reiterated that a "political solution was the only viable option to resolve the Syrian crisis," which has so far claimed more than 120,000 lives in more than two years of civil war.
