Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) Secretary-General Hussein Ibrahim praised the moderate Islamist Al-Wasat Party initiative for national reconciliation, "welcoming all initiatives that respect legitimacy and call for national unity to overcome the [current] challenges," according to a party statement Sunday.

Ibrahim confirmed that the FJP appreciates Al-Wasat Party’s efforts to "heal the rift" in Egyptian political life.

However, leading opposition activist Ahmed Bahaa-El Din Shaaban, head of the Egyptian Socialist Party and a leading member of the National Salvation Front (NSF), Egypt's main opposition umbrella group, described the initiative as “a desperate one at a desperate time, trying to save a totalitarian, corrupt and failed regime."

"It is too late to save the regime from its inevitable fate,” Shaaban added in a statement Saturday.

“The so-called initiative for an alleged national consensus aims to break the unity of the opposition ... So they can disperse the unity of the people, that refuses the Brotherhoodisation of the state,” Shaaban’s statement added.

“This is the last attempt of Morsi’s invitation for dialogue with the opposition, after a year of condescending the people’s voice and political forces,” he explained.

Al-Wasat Party, which is closely associated with the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, released a statement Saturday calling for an urgent national reconciliation meeting no later than this week to “save Egyptian blood,” fearing 30 June demonstrations will trigger violence between opponents and supporters of President Mohamed Morsi.

The call, which was sent to all opposition figures, comes from the Muslim Brotherhood ally ahead of mass demonstrations on the first anniversary of President Morsi's coming to power.

The demonstrations, the culmination of the "Rebel" campaign to get 15 million signatures withdrawing confidence from Morsi, aim to trigger early presidential elections.