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发帖数: 29846 | 1 (Reuters) - U.S. officials have met members of the Muslim Brotherhood's
political party, a U.S. diplomat said, after Washington announced it would
have direct contacts with Egypt's biggest Islamist group whose role has
grown since U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was ousted.
Washington announced the plans in June, portraying such contacts as the
continuation of an earlier policy. But analysts said it reflected a new
approach to the way it dealt with a group which Mubarak banned from politics.
The Brotherhood is one of Egypt's most popular and organized groups, with a
broad grassroots network built up partly through social work even in Mubarak
's era.
The contacts may unsettle Israel and its U.S. backers. The Brotherhood
renounced violence as a means to achieve political change in Egypt years ago
. But groups like Hamas, which have not disavowed violence, look to the
Brotherhood as a spiritual guide.
Under the previous policy, U.S. diplomats were allowed to deal with the
Brotherhood's members of parliament who had won seats as "independents" to
skirt the official ban. This offered a diplomatic cover to keep lines of
communication open.
"We have had direct contacts with senior officials of the Freedom and
Justice party," the senior diplomat told Reuters, referring to the
Brotherhood's party that was founded after politics opened up following the
ouster of Mubarak.
The diplomat said U.S. officials did not make a distinction between members
of the Brotherhood or its party. "We don't have a policy that makes a
distinction, that one or the other is off limits," he said, without saying
when the meetings took place.
The diplomat was responding to a question about whether any meetings had
occurred, after Freedom Justice Party Chairman Mohamed Mursi told Egypt's Al
-Dostour newspaper last week that U.S. officials had not made contact since
the policy shift.
Speaking to Reuters on Sunday, the party deputy head Essam el-Erian also
denied any meetings had taken place with U.S. officials when asked about the
diplomat's comments.
It was not immediately clear why the two sides gave different accounts.
"HIGH-LEVEL" MEETINGS
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked in an interview broadcast
on Saturday with Egypt's Al-Hayat television whether Washington would be
ready to work with a future government that included members of the
Brotherhood.
"We will be willing to and open to working with a government that has
representatives who are committed to non-violence, who are committed to
human rights, who are committed to the democracy that I think was hoped for
in Tahrir Square," she replied, according to a U.S. transcript.
Under the former Egyptian president, the Brotherhood was banned and its
members often detained. Mubarak often presented himself as the bulwark
preventing Egypt's slide into Islamist hands, an approach that analysts said
help secure him backing from Washington and other Western powers wary that
Egypt could turn into another Iran or Gaza.
The group took a backseat in the early part of the anti-Mubarak uprising,
which was broadly led by youth groups who put national concerns above
religion. But the Brotherhood and its party have taken a increasingly
prominent role since.
The diplomat said the U.S. contacts had been with "high-level" members of
the Brotherhood's party but did not give names. From the U.S. side, he said
the contacts were not at ambassadorial level but he did not give further
details.
"We had occasionally had these contacts in the past ... The difference is in
the past we had seen parliamentarians," he said.
Egypt's parliament was dissolved after Mubarak's fall. Fresh elections for
the lower house are due to start in November, with a vote for the upper
house early next year.
The Brotherhood is expected to perform well in the vote, although many
analysts expect a fairly fragmented parliament with no single unified voice
emerging.
The diplomat said contacts with the Brotherhood were part of an bid to
understand Egypt better and explain U.S. policies.
"From our perspective it is important to be in touch with all of the
emerging political forces here in Egypt, across the board, that are peaceful
and committed to non-violence," he said.
"It helps to understand Egypt and the way the political system is developing
, and it helps us to deliver our message and get them to understand where we
are coming from," he added.
(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan; Editing by Rosalind Russell) |
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