BEIRUT - A U.N. envoy on Sunday intensified pressure on the Syrian government to accept an opposition offer to negotiate an end to the country's 23-month-long conflict.
Lakhdar Brahimi, the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, told reporters in Cairo that opposition leader Mouaz al-Khatib's initiative aimed at opening negotiations with representatives of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government remains very much "on the table" after it received an endorsement from the wider opposition on Friday.
The offer was initially announced on Facebook by Khatib, the president of the umbrella National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, stirring outrage from other members of the coalition, who claimed they had not been consulted. The opposition has long rejected talks with any representatives of Assad's regime, holding it responsible for the more than 60,000 deaths reported by the U.N. since the revolt erupted in March 2011.
