France backs UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's bid to bring key world and regional powers into a contact group on the worsening Syria crisis, a foreign ministry spokesman said Friday.
But diplomats said France, like the United States, opposed Annan's idea of inviting Iran, an ally of the Syrian regime, into the group.
France has lately expelled Syria's ambassador over the escalating crisis there and will host a new Friends of Syria meeting in early July, President Francois Hollande said on 29 May.
Hollande, speaking to reporters after a Paris meeting with Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi, said of Syria that "among the decisions taken, there is the explusion of the Syrian ambassador in France. This is not a unilateral decision but in consultation with our partners."
Later, it was revealed later that the expulsions were a coordinated move with France, Britain and Italy.
However, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius ruled out ground intervention in Syria, saying the risk of the conflict could spread was too great.
"The Syrian army is powerful. No state is ready to consider ground intervention at the current time. The risk of the conflict spreading throughout the region would be too high, particularly to Lebanon," Fabius said in an interview with French daily Le Monde.
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