A top US diplomat yesterday met a jailed senior leader in the Muslim Brotherhood, part of mediation efforts to end the standoff between Egypt’s military-backed government and protesters supporting ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, government officials said.
They said US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met in prison with Khairat el-Shater, the powerful deputy head of the Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which Morsi hails. Burns was accompanied by the foreign ministers of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as well as an EU envoy.
El-Shater is charged with complicity in the killing of anti-Morsi protesters.
Burns and the three other diplomats are in Egypt as part of international efforts to end a standoff between Morsi’s supporters and the government installed by the military after it toppled the Islamist president in a July 3 coup.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The officials did not say why Burns and the other diplomats visited el-Shater, who was widely believed, along with the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Mohammed Badie, to be the source of real power during Morsi’s year in power.
Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, has been held at an undisclosed location since his ouster.
Burns’ visit to el-Shater was authorized in advance by a prosecutor since he, Badie and four others are awaiting trial on charges related to the killing of eight protesters outside the Brotherhood’s Cairo headquarters hours after millions of Egyptians took to the streets on June 30 to demand Morsi’s ouster. The trial is set for Aug 25. Badie is in hiding.
In a brief statement, the Brotherhood said Morsi remained the legitimately elected president who should be spoken to and not anyone else. However, it did not condemn the Burns visit.
The visit came after Egypt’s highest security body — the National Defense Council — announced that the timeframe for any negotiated resolution to the current standoff should be “defined and limited.” It also called on pro-Morsi protesters to abandon their sit-ins and join the political roadmap announced the day of the coup.
With the Islamist-backed constitution adopted last year suspended and the legislature dominated by Morsi’s supporters dissolved, the roadmap provides for a new or amended constitution to be put to a national referendum later this year and presidential and parliamentary elections early next year.
Burns had extended his visit to Cairo by two days so he could have further talks with Egyptian leaders on Sunday and yesterday. He met Egyptian Minister of Defense General Abdel-Fatah el-Sissi, who led the July 3 coup, and interim Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi on Sunday.
The US Department of State said Burns discussed the importance of avoiding violence and fostering an inclusive process “that helps Egypt’s ongoing transition succeed” — another clear sign Washington has moved on from Morsi’s presidency.
Burns also met for a second time with an anti-coup delegation that included two Muslim Brotherhood figures. He requested the meetings and urged them to avoid violence, according to Nevine Malak, who attended the meetings with Burns as part of the anti-coup delegation.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS