TALKS on a resolution of the Syrian civil war got under way in Vienna yesterday, with Iranian representatives attending for the first time.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif attended the negotiations after the United States agreed to extend an invitation to the key regional player.

But Syria itself remained excluded from the discussion, in which rebel-backers the US, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are demanding that President Bashar al-Assad’s government must be overthrown before there can be peace.