US says ‘it’s clear Egyptians have spoken’

WASHINGTON / CAIRO

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki criticized the toppled President Mohamed Morsi's rule on July 10. AFP photo

Seven days after the Egyptian military deposed the democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi, the United States has still not decided whether to call his ouster a “coup.” But top US officials on Wednesday, while continuing to insist the United States was not taking sides in Egypt’s political upheaval, sought to untangle the convoluted position taken by the Obama administration.

“It’s clear that the Egyptian people have spoken,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, when asked whether Washington still considered Morsi the legitimate president. “There’s an interim government in place... this is leading the path to democracy, we are hopeful. And we are in touch with a range of actors. But obviously, he is no longer in his acting position.” Challenged about the fact that, before his ouster, Egypt already had a democratically elected government, Psaki replied: “It wasn’t a democratic rule. That’s the whole point.”

PM says won’t rule out Brotherhood role in new gov’t

In Cairo, Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi said on Thursday he would not rule out posts for the Muslim Brotherhood in a new cabinet, if the candidates were suitably qualified.
 
“I don’t look at political association ... If someone is named from (the Brotherhood’s) Freedom and Justice Party, if he is qualified for the post” he may be considered, Beblawi told AFP. Al-beblawi faced increased difficulties in forming an interim government after it issued a warrant for the arrest of the leader of the Islamist movement backing ousted president Mohamed Morsi.
 
Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood has spurned an offer from al-Beblawi to join the new government, and called for a mass rally on Friday against what it called “a bloody military coup.” After a year in power through Morsi, the Brotherhood is now in tatters, with much of its leadership detained, on the run or keeping a low profile following the Islamist president’s overthrow last week in a popular military coup.
 
Police were searching for the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohamed Badie, after a warrant was issued for his arrest on Wednesday, in connection with deadly violence in Cairo. Badie and other senior Brotherhood leaders are wanted on suspicion of inciting clashes an army building on Monday which killed 53 people, mostly Morsi partisans, judicial sources said.

Egypt's Brotherhood vows to keep defying coup

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood vowed Thursday to continue its "peaceful" resistance in defiance of the military's ouster of the country's Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
 
A Brotherhood statement also distanced the group from an assassination attempt Wednesday against a senior army commander in the Sinai Peninsula.
 
The statement came a day after Egypt's military-backed government tightened its crackdown on the Brotherhood, ordering the arrest of its spiritual leader in a bid to choke off the group's campaign to reinstate Morsi, now held at an undisclosed Defense Ministry facility.
 
The Brotherhood is outraged by the overthrow of Morsi and demands nothing less than his release from detention and his reinstatement as president.
 
"We will continue our peaceful resistance to the bloody military coup against constitutional legitimacy," the Brotherhood said. "We trust that the peaceful and popular will of the people shall triumph over force and oppression."