David Cameron will this week become the first British Prime Minister to hold talks with an Iranian president since the country's 1979 revolution. Cameron and Hassan Rouhani will discuss the possibility of Iran supporting a US-led coalition to fight fundamentalists in Syria.
The bilateral talks, to be held in New York where both men are attending a UN general assembly, are also remarkable because the idea that Iran might support the country it dubs the 'Great Satan' in carrying out a military campaign in the Middle East would have been unthinkable until very recently.
Iran has so far been excluded from all international talks about Syria and has supported the country's embattled president, Bashar al-Assad, during the country's civil war says The Guardian. Nor was it allowed to join the recent Paris summit on how to combat the threat of Islamic State.
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However, Rouhani has been a "fierce critic" of IS, says the paper. Rather than condemning the US air strikes on the militants he has said that "maybe it is necessary". Before travelling to New York, he even criticised Obama for his unwillingness to commit ground troops to the fight.
Rouhani said: "Are Americans afraid of giving casualties on the ground in Iraq? Are they afraid of their soldiers being killed in the fight they claim is against terrorism?
"If they want to use planes and if they want to use unmanned planes so that nobody is injured from the Americans, is it really possible to fight terrorism without any hardship, without any sacrifice?
"Maybe it is necessary for air strikes in some conditions and some circumstances. However, air strikes should take place with the permission of the people of that country and the government of that country."
The US began air strikes on IS in Syria, as opposed to Iraq, yesterday, in concert with unspecified Arab nation allies, while the Daily Telegraph reported last night that RAF Tornado aircraft stationed in the Middle East have been "ready to go for weeks".
However, the paper says while David Cameron is willing to join the US in carrying out air strikes on IS in Iraq, he will stop short of bombing Syria, because he is "acutely aware of opposition in all three political parties to a Syria intervention".
