Ashton Meets Mursi, Brotherhood to Protest until He’s Reinstated

Local Editor

The European Union's top diplomat held a two-hour meeting with Egypt's ousted president, who has been held incommunicado since his overthrow in July 3, the EU said on Tuesday.

Catherine Ashton is the first person outside Egypt's military or security services who is reported to have met Mohammed Mursi since he was toppled. News of the meeting was posted in the Twitter account of the EU's Foreign and Security policy Service led by Ashton.

It did not say when or where the meeting took place.

Since his ouster, which followed days of mass protests by millions of Egyptians, the former president has been detained by the military in an undisclosed location. A group of Egyptian rights activists were taken by the military to Mursi's place of detention this week but he refused to see them.

Prosecutors on Friday said Mursi was facing accusations of conspiring with the Palestinian Hamas group to escape from prison during the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Ashton is in Egypt on her second visit this month to search for a way out of Egypt's increasingly bloody and complex crisis, looking for compromises in talks with the military-backed government and allies of the ousted president.
Ahead of her visit, Ashton deplored the violence over the weekend that killed 83 protesters and appealed for a political process that includes all groups, including Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.
Meanwhile, the Brotherhood rejected calls to work with the new leaders and called for new demonstrations on Tuesday.
Ashton's visit and telephone calls by US Secretary of State John Kerry to her and to Egyptian leaders underscored the sense of urgency in the international community, whose leaders are pushing for an inclusive political process that puts an end to violence.

The Brotherhood and its allies insist that Mursi must be reinstated, but the military-backed government is pushing ahead with a transition plan that provides for parliamentary and presidential elections early next year.

After their talks with Ashton, a delegation of politicians representing the pro-Mursi camp said the military-backed government must take the first step toward any reconciliation by releasing jailed Brotherhood leaders, ending the crackdown on their protests and stopping media campaigns against them.

"The coalition affirmed the Egyptian people will not leave streets and squares until constitutional legitimacy returns," a statement said after the meeting
"Creating the atmosphere requires those in authority now to send messages of reassurance," Mohammed Mahsoub, of the Wasat Party, told reporters.
Speaking alongside a Brotherhood official, Mahsoub appeared to be sticking by the demand to reinstate Mursi by saying any solution must be on a "constitutional basis."

But a spokesman for military-backed interim President Adly Mansour suggested Monday that there would be no deviation from the transition plan. When asked about reconciliation initiatives on the table, Ahmed al-Muslemani said: "The ship has sailed and we have no way but to go forward."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team