Iran officially invited to Syria talks for first time

US officials announced Tuesday that Iran has been officially invited to participate in the next round of the multilateral talks on Syria's future, which will be held Thursday in Vienna. Until now the US and Saudi Arabia had strongly opposed the participation of Tehran, but on Monday Russian President Vladimir Putin called Saudi King Salman and convinced him to agree. DEBKAfile: In other words, there is significant progress in the negotiations between the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey on finding a way to end the war in Syria.