LUXEMBOURG, June 20 (UPI) -- With international pressure mounting on Damascus, the Syrian president pressed for national dialogue Monday while blaming outsiders for the country's problems.
Syrian President Bashar Assad told an audience Monday at Damascus University that he was pressing for a national dialogue aimed to finding a solution to the country's crisis.
"The national dialogue doesn't mean certain elites or the dialogue of the opposition with the loyalists or the authority," the official Syrian Arab News Agency quoted the president as saying. "And it is not only limited to politics but it is a dialogue with all spectrum of the Syrian people on all issues of the homeland."
He warned, however, that no political solution could develop so long as a small group of saboteurs and foreign elements stood in the way.
Monday's speech was the third for the Syrian president since demonstrations erupted in March. Washington questioned his appeals for reforms after violence continued following his earlier speeches.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said from Luxembourg where he arrived Monday for a meeting with European leaders that Damascus was losing its legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. The Syrian president, he was quoted by the BBC as saying, "should reform or step aside."
