The head of Syria’s so-called opposition, Burhan Ghalioun, formally resigned from his post, a statement issued by the Syrian National Council said Thursday after a two-day meeting in Istanbul

The head of Syria’s so-called opposition, Burhan Ghalioun, formally resigned from his post, a statement issued by the Syrian National Council said Thursday after a two-day meeting in Istanbul.
  
The SNC "office decided to accept the resignation and to ask the council president to pursue his work until the election of a new president at a meeting on June 9-10", it said.
  
Ghalioun announced his resignation on May 17 to “avert divisions within the opposition bloc, after activists on the ground accused him of monopolizing power,” AFP reported.

Ghalioun, who had led by consensus rather than through election since the SNC's founding in October, was elected as the exile group's chairman in a vote held in Rome on May 15.
 
He said after announcing his plan to step down that he would remain an SNC member "hand-in-hand with the young people who struggle, the young people of the revolution of dignity and freedom, until victory", while urging all division-hit “opposition groups” to unite ranks.
  
Hours earlier, the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a network of activists on the ground, threatened to pull out of the SNC over its lack of collaboration with activists in Syria and "monopolization" of power. The LCC also criticized the SNC over the strong influence that Syria's Muslim Brotherhood wields over the coalition, AFP said.