Mursi calls for talks with opposition over polls

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi on Monday called for a meeting with the country's opposition to discuss upcoming legislative polls, amid calls for a boycott.

"I call on all the brothers in the different parties in all of Egypt to come... so we can sit and put in the place the guarantees for the transparency and fairness of the elections," Mursi said in an interview on private satellite channel al-Mehwar.

The interview, which was due to be aired on Sunday evening, was transmitted hours later and ended at dawn, provoking much criticism on social networks.

Initially the election had been set to begin on April 27, with a new parliament to convene on July 6.

But the dates conflicted with pre-Easter and Easter holidays, prompting Mursi to announce new ones "in response to requests by Christian brothers," a reference to the Coptic Church, his office said Saturday.

The Muslim Brotherhood -- from which Mursi hails-- and Islamist allies dominated the last parliamentary election in 2011 that resulted in an Islamist-majority house which a court annulled on a technicality before Mursi's election last June.