Vice President Omar Suleiman met yesterday with opposition groups including the Muslim Brotherhood, a well-organised Islamist movement that has long been officially banned from Egyptian politics, the official Mena news agency said.
The talks are aimed at discussing democratic reforms leading to elections to replace President Hosni Mubarak after almost two weeks of mass protests against the 82-year-old’s rule.
Some Western observers have expressed concern the Brotherhood could sweep to power and institute an Islamist regime that would be no more democratic and might break Egypt’s close alliance with Washington. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cautiously welcomed yesterday the Muslim Brotherhood’s involvement in political dialogue in Egypt, saying Washington would “wait and see” how talks develop.
“Today we learned the Muslim Brotherhood decided to participate, which suggests they at least are now involved in the dialogue that we have encouraged,” Mrs Clinton told National Public Radio (NPR) from Germany.
“We’re going to wait and see how this develops, but we’ve been very clear about what we expect.”
There are also worries, particularly in Israel, that under the Brotherhood, Egypt could adopt a much more hostile stance towards the Jewish state, even tearing up their 1979 peace treaty, signed after four wars.
Mubarak has been a key diplomatic figure in regional diplomacy in his three decades in power, mediating between the Israelis and the rest of the Arab world, and the Palestinians in particular. Meanwhile yesterday being the 13th day of the popular revolt against Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, the army reinforced its positions in Tahrir Square, still filled with demonstrators demanding Mr Mubarak’s immediate resignation, although Cairo life begins to return to normal with traffic jams as bridges, shops and banks reopen.
The Muslim Brotherhood is represented at a meeting with the government for the first time since it was banned in Egypt in 1954, as part of multi-party talks at which opposition figurehead Mohamed ElBaradei was notably not invited but which included Wafd party (liberal), the Tagammu (left), members of pro-democracy groups, independent political figures and businessmen.