WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is reviewing an invitation to attend upcoming talks on the Syria conflict in the Kazakh capital, Astana, later this month, a State Department official said on Thursday.

“We did get an invitation and it’s under review,” the official told Reuters, after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying the U.S. had been invited.

The talks, arranged by Moscow, will include officials from Russia, Iran, Turkey and the United Nations, and comes as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office on Friday.

Moscow, which has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a military campaign against Islamic State and U.S.-backed opposition groups, has pushed the Astana talks with help from Iran and Turkey.

Iran said in a statement published by its embassy in Kazakhstan that it saw the Astana talks as an opportunity to establish dialogue between the government and Syrian opposition. However, Tehran has said it opposed any U.S. presence at the meeting.

With U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who led talks with Russia on several failed ceasefire attempts in Syria, stepping down later on Thursday, a decision on whether to attend the talks will be up to the new Trump administration.

Tom Shannon, the under secretary of state for political affairs and a long-time career diplomat, will run the State Department until Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is confirmed by the Senate, Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer said.

Spicer told reporters that 50 government employees with senior jobs, including Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work and Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy for countering Islamic State, had been asked to stay on.