Barely days after he had rejected a role for Iran in the coalition against the Islamic State (IS), U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the Persian state can play a role in confronting and destroying IS. Addressing a session of the UN Security Council on Iraq on Friday, Kerry said there was a role for nearly every country in the world to defeat what he described as a “militant cult masquerading as a religious movement”.
The coalition required to eliminate ISIL is not only, or even primarily, military in nature. It must be comprehensive and include close collaboration across multiple lines of effort. There is a role for nearly every country in the world to play, including Iran.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
Kerry’s comments came as Tehran and six top world powers launched a fresh effort on Friday at narrowing differences on what nuclear concessions Iran must agree to in exchange for full sanctions relief. U.S. officials told the Reuters news agency the basic dilemma was how to keep Iran from hardening its stance in the nuclear talks out of a misguided belief that Washington might make nuclear concessions in exchange for help against ISIL. While they are long-time antagonists, U.S. and Iranian interests now appear to intersect in Iraq, where neither wishes to see the Shia-led government lose more territory to ISIL.
No one has called me and asked me with respect to the presence of Iran, but I think under the circumstances, at this moment in time, it would not be right for any number of reasons.
John Kerry on Sept 13, about the absence of Iran in anti-IS discussions