SYRIA: Activists snub regime's invitation to talks

[frigidmagi]

LA Times

[quote]The Syrian Local Coordination Committee, the primary mouthpiece of anti-regime protestors now posing the largest threat to the four-decade rule of the Assad family, released a statement Tuesday rejecting the regime’s invitation to a July 10 meeting aimed at compromise.

President Bashar Assad and the recently formed National Dialogue Commission chaired by Vice President Farouk Sharaa called for the consultation meeting last week.

According to the Syrian state-owned news agency SANA, the purpose of the meeting would be to "establish bases and mechanisms of dialogue in preparation for holding a National Dialogue Conference."

Sharaa's group extended invitations to all Syrian intellectual and political figures, SANA reported.

The group representing the protesters responded to the invitation by questioning the meeting’s purpose, dismissing the regime’s call for dialogue as unlikely to arrive at actual solutions.

The Syrian Local Coordination Committee accused the regime of using a “national dialogueâ€