Iran says attending regional meet on Syria in Cairo

TEHERAN (AFP) - Iran said it was joining officials from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey for a four-way "contact group" meeting in Cairo looking at ways to calm the conflict in Syria.

An Iranian deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, had left Teheran for the Egyptian capital to take part in the meeting, foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told Iran's Al-Alam Arabic-language broadcaster.

Egyptian officials in Cairo were not immediately available to confirm the meeting.

If confirmed, it would be the first such meeting of a "contact group" on Syria proposed by Egypt's new president, Dr Mohamed Morsi, at an August summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Saudi Arabia that suspended Syria's membership.