CAIRO: A number of Syrian opposition factions will gather in Cairo next month to form a new coalition as an alternative to an exiled West-backed alliance, officials said Saturday.

More than 200 figures from the armed and civilian opposition factions are to attend the June 8-9 gathering and discuss a roadmap aimed at ending the four-year war in Syria.

The new grouping would offer an alternative to the National Coalition, the exiled opposition bloc that is widely recognized and supported by Western and Arab countries.

“Arab, Kurdish and all faiths will attend the meeting to elect a political committee to adopt a roadmap and a policy charter,” Haytham Manna, a veteran opposition figure and a key organizer of the event, told AFP.

The new coalition would be called the Syrian National Opposition and would be “totally different” from the National Coalition, he said.

— Agence France Presse

“It will be a Syrian-Syrian meeting, 100 percent financed by us, not controlled by anyone, and managed by someone with a pure Syrian agenda,” Manna said of the June conference.

Egypt confirmed the meeting, saying it would be a gathering of “broad Syrian opposition and national forces.”

The objective of the conference was to “express a broader vision of the Syrian opposition spectrum... to work toward ending the Syrian crisis,” said the foreign ministry.

Manna said Egypt would only host the conference and “not interfere” in it.