However, Syrian opposition groups were quick to reject the new peace initiative by President Bashar al-Assad. George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, told Reuters the peace plan Assad put at the heart of his speech did “not even deserve to be called an initiative.”

The president’s rare address on Sunday in a hall at the opera House in central Damascus, his first since June, said the new initiative could only get under way when Western countries stop funding and arming rebels and said he is ready to hold a dialogue with those “who have not betrayed Syria”.

Assad said his nation is in a “state of war”.

“We do not reject political dialogue … but with whom should we hold a dialogue? With extremists who don’t understand any language but that of terrorism?”

“Or should we have dialogue with puppets brought to the country by the West,” he added.

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s speech was denounced by British Foreign Secretary William Hague as “beyond hypocritical” while Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had simply repeated empty promises in his speech in Damascus on Sunday, and called for a swift transition in the war-torn country.

“His remarks are just repetitions of what he’s said all along. They are the same promises he made to us,” Davutoglu said.

Meanwhile, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Brussels would “look carefully if there is anything new in the speech, but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition” while State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said his initiative is detached from reality, undermines the efforts of Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, and would only allow the regime to further perpetuate its bloody oppression of the Syrian people.

“The Carter Center has received accreditation as one of the organizations that will witness the election by Egypt’s Supreme Presidential Election Commission,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, according to AFP.

She said the 22 observers from 14 countries will “join in total an 80-person witness delegation covering 35 countries and they will be there for several days before the election and through the election,” Nuland told reporters.

The Carter Center is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization founded in 1982 by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter. In partnership with Emory University, The Carter Center works to advance human rights.The Carter Center has been a pioneer of election observation, monitoring more than 80 elections in Africa, Latin America, and Asia since 1989 and forging many of the techniques now common to the field.

Polls indicate that Amr Mussa, a former foreign minister and Arab League chief, and Islamist candidate Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh are the leading contenders in the May 23-24 elections, according to Egypt Independent News. 

Eleven other candidates are competing in the presidential election which should mark the end of a turbulent military-led transitional period since president Hosni Mubarak’s was ousted in February 2011.

Results of the voting for expatriates are expected to be announced on Friday, the Supreme Presidential Election Commission (SPEC) 
announced, with a run-off voting set to take place between June 3 and 9, if necessary. Voting inside Egypt will take place on May 23-24.

According to Egyptian media, 57,000 Egyptians have already voted. Turnout has been particularly high in Saudi Arabia, home of nearly half of the 587,000 registered voters abroad.