Guinea's opposition has rejected a proposal for a government of national unity which would include the military junta which seized power last December, reports Le Potentiel of Kinshasa.

The opposition wanted nothing less than the junta to relinquish power, the newspaper reported.

Citing an Agence France-Presse report, it quoted Idrissa Chérif, an adviser to junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, as saying the military had asked mediator President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso for a unity government to enable everyone to make a contribution to resolving the crisis in Guinea.

Asked to comment on a call for Camara to go into exile in another West African country during the term of a transitional government, Chérif said: "That is only in the minds of those calling for it. The army brought Captain Camara to power, so what authority does the opposition have to remove him?"

From Ouagadougou, Fasozine reports that Compaoré met this week with a 26-man delegation from the junta. The delegation was headed by Moussa Kéïta, a minister and permanent secretary for the ruling group.

After an open meeting with the press, Compaoré held a closed-door meeting with envoys from Guinea. At the end of the meeting, Kéïta told journalists that it had been a first step and President Compaoré had told the delegation how he intended to go about the mediation, his concerns and what he was going to focus on.

Kéïta said the mediation would proceed in "a spirit of transparency and the spirit of dialogue." Camara was open to discussion with the goal of finding a speedy resolution to the crisis, he said, was would willingly agree to a power-sharing agreement.

Report adapted from the original French reports by Michael Tantoh.