Prime Minister Hisham Qandil told AFP news agency that President Mohamed Morsi is preparing to amend a controversial decree in which he assumed sweeping powers.

But Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros, reporting from Cairo, says the dialogue is not going according to plan.

“In fact, right now, the so-called ‘national dialogue’ meeting is taking place at the presidential palace,” said Tadros, adding that “notable absent are any key members of the opposition.”

Morsi called for a national dialogue urging the president to first cancel a December 15 referendum on a controversial draft constitution and rescind decrees granting him immunity from any oversight.  The country’s main political opposition groups have boycotted the talks.

Egypt’s main Islamist parties on Saturday rejected opposition demands to delay the referendum on a new constitution they helped draft.

The coalition of 13 parties “insist that the referendum on the constitution take place on the scheduled date, with no modification or delay,” according to a joint statement read to media by the number two of the Muslim Brotherhood,
Khairat al-Shater.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s military has warned of “disastrous consequences” if the political crisis gripping the country is not resolved through dialogue.

“The path of dialogue is the best and only way to reach agreement and achieve the interests of the nation and its citizens,” said the military in a statement released on Saturday.

“The opposite of that will take us into a dark tunnel with disastrous results,” the statement added.

The military statement came as demonstrators fenced off an administrative building in Tahrir Square as anger over Morsi’s attempts to push through a new constitution continues.

It also came after the state-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported that Morsi would soon authorise the armed forces to help police keep order.

The capital Cairo and other cities have been rocked by violent protests since November 22, when Morsi issued a decree awarding himself sweeping powers that put him above the law.

‘Arm-twisting’

The National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition, said it would not join Saturday’s national dialogue.

The Front’s co-ordinator, Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate, dismissed the offer as “arm-twisting and imposition of a fait accompli”.

Murad Ali, spokesperson for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, said opposition reactions were disappointing: “What exit to this crisis do they have other than dialogue?” he asked.

Morsi could be joined by some senior judiciary figures and politicians such as Ayman Nour, one of the candidates in ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s only multi-candidate presidential race, in 2005, in which he was defeated.

Mahmoud Mekki, Egypt’s vice president, issued a statement saying the president was prepared to postpone the referendum if that could be done without legal challenge.

But the concession fails to meet the full demands of the opposition, who also want Morsi to discard the decree awarding himself extra powers.

ElBaradei said that if Morsi were to scrap the decree with which he awarded himself wide powers and postpone the
referendum “he will unite the national forces”.

The state news agency reported that the election committee had postponed the start of voting for Egyptians abroad until Wednesday, instead of Saturday as planned. It did not say whether this would affect the timing of voting within Egypt.

Ahmed Said, leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told the Reuters news agency that delaying expatriate voting was intended to seem like a concession but would not change the opposition’s stance.