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Student representative Lesther Aleman speaks at a press conference in Managua on June 18, 2018, to discuss the suspension of the opposition dialogue with the government. EFE-EPA/Jorge Torres

Crisis in Nicaragua: Dialogue suspended due to government non-compliance

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The Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua, the mediator and witness for the national dialogue, on Monday decided to suspend the three dialogue forums created to try and overcome the country's current crisis because the Daniel Ortega administration did not provide copies of the invitation letter to visit the country to international entities.

"The three National Dialogue forums are suspended due to non-compliance of the government of Nicaragua, which did not present the invitation letters to the international entities (@IACHR, @UN and @UNIONEUROPEA) to visit the country, as had been agreed at the plenary dialogue session last Friday," Bishop Silvio Baez said on Twitter.

The government had agreed on Friday to "immediately" invite the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Union and the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States to visit Nicaragua.

The parties to the dialogue also agreed "to urge the presence of the IACHR and urge it to announce to the members of the international investigatory group for Nicaragua that they will have to work 'in situ' to contribute to the investigation of all the deaths and acts of violence and the identification of those responsible" since April 18.

The dialogue between the government and the opposition would have resumed on Monday, after two working groups were formed to discuss legal and electoral reforms proposed by the bishops to resolve the crisis, measures that imply moving the national elections up to March 2019.

The dialogue groups are comprised of three government representatives and three from the Alliance for Justice and Democracy, which encompasses university students, businessmen, members of civil society and the peasantry.

Nicaragua is mired in a socio-political crisis that has resulted in between 178-200 deaths since mid-April, according to humanitarian organizations, making it the country's bloodiest crisis since the 1980s, when Ortega was also president.