The Russian government is urging Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to engage with the opposition.
Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia still refuses to support calls for Assad to step down but pressed Assad to consider all options to end the conflict.
"We actively encouraged... the Syrian leadership to maximally put into action its declared readiness for dialogue with the opposition," Lavrov said to reporters on Thursday, after a meeting with Syria’s deputy foreign minister Faisal Muqdad.
"I hope that the inside Syria will prompt reasonable members of the opposition to search for way to start a political dialogue,
"The international community must not incite either side toward violence or pose preliminary conditions."
Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told reporters that Moscow had sent an invitation for talks to the opposition and Lavrov said that "as far as we understand, they (the National Coalition leaders) are not against this offer".
