Iranian officials contacted Syria's Muslim Brotherhood to try to mediate a political solution to a 10-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad but their efforts were rebuffed, a senior Brotherhood member said on Wednesday.
The unrest in Syria is threatening to slide into civil war as Assad's forces try to crush a protest movement. In recent months, armed rebels backing the protesters have brought the fight inccreasingly to security forces A senior Muslim Brotherhood member, Melhem al-Droubi, told Reuters that the group had seen no details of the Iranian offer made on December 20 but that it would not deal with Tehran unless it revoked its support for Assad.
"They (Iranian officials) asked about the possibility of the Brotherhood visiting Tehran, or Iran sending mediators to meet our leadership," said Droubi. "We didn't hear details about the offer and we didn't open an opportunity for them to discuss it.
"We refuse to either go there or receive them until they clearly stop their support of the regime and take a neutral position between the Syrian people and Bashar al-Assad. As long as they remain a party in this struggle, we will refuse to meet them."
Another high ranking Brotherhood official was quoted by the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Wednesday as saying Iranian mediators had proposed a deal offering control of the government in Damascus if President Bashar al-Assad could remain president.
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