Syria contact group enlarged to include dissidents, regime officials

Egypt's president has said a quadrilateral regional contact group that aims to find a peaceful settlement to the Syria crisis, had decided to invited representatives from the Damascus regime and the opposition as well as the Arab League. "We had previously set up a quadrilateral contact group [...] to solve the Syrian crisis. However, the group was enlarged in order to include representatives of the opposition, the Syrian regime and the Arab League," Mohamed Morsi told a press conference following a meeting with his Brazilian counterpart Dilma Rousseff in Brasilia. President Morsi noted that the Gulf countries must also join the contact group of Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran. The contact group was formed in August as an initiative of Egypt. It held a summit in capital of Cairo in September, but Saudi Arabia refused to participate in that meeting. Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have demanded Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down to restore peace in Syria, while Iran has staunchly supported the regime and its embattled leader since an uprising erupted in March 2011 which killed more than 70,000 people.