UN chief Ban Ki-moon has invited Iran to take part in preliminary Syrian peace talks this week in Switzerland. But Syria's main opposition group said it would withdraw from the talks unless Ban retracted the offer to Iran, President Bashar al-Assad's main backer.
UN Chief said he had received assurances that Iran would play a positive role in securing a transitional government.
And the US said the offer must be conditional on Iran's support for the 2012 deal on Syria's transition.
The Syria peace conference has been more than a year in the making and now it is in disarray before it's even started, reports the BBC's Kim Ghattas.
Responding to Ban's invitation in a tweet, spokesman of Syria's main political opposition group, the National Coalition, Louay Safi wrote:
Another senior Coalition member, Anas al-Abdah, told Al-Jazeera TV by phone that the body was "surprised" by the invitation to Iran. "It is illogical and we cannot in any way accept it."
Preliminary talks are due to open in Montreux on Wednesday and then continue in Geneva two days later.
Syria's government earlier agreed to attend the meeting.
The three-year conflict in Syria has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people. An estimated two million people have fled the country and some 6.5 million have been internally displaced.
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