Friday, February 11, 2011

American President Barack Obama held an emergency meeting of his national security team Thursday, as tensions soared in Egypt after President Hosni Mubarak defied mass demands for his resignation.

Though Obama did not make any immediate comments on Mubarak’s address, CNN quoted one unidentified official as saying the speech was “not what we were told would happen, not what we wanted to happen.”
U.S. Senator John McCain condemned Mubarak’s “deeply unfortunate and troubling” refusal to step down immediately and urged him to heed his people’s calls to quit power.

“I urge President Mubarak to begin listening to and trusting his people. The stability of Egypt and the wider region increasingly depend on it.” he said. He also rebuked Mubarak for declaring “I have never bent to foreign diktats,” in an apparent swipe at the U.S. and other nations that have pushed him to accelerate a transition to democracy.
According to Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, the U.S. aims to prevent Egypt’s transition from Mubarak’s rule from being “hijacked by extremists or those who do not deeply believe in the open and tolerant and democratic process that we want.”

Steinberg repeatedly sidestepped or deflected lawmakers’ questions about whether Washington currently opposed a role for the Muslim Brotherhood in a future government in Egypt.

“We are actively working to make sure that the government that emerges is an inclusive, tolerant, democratic one that respects the rights of women, minorities, religious minorities and the like,” Steinberg said. “And anybody, any group that isn’t consistent with that, we would not support their being a part of the government,” he added, stressing “I don’t think we single out any individual group.”

“It is for the people to make the government, and that’s what we would expect. And we would expect as we move forward with a democratic, inclusive government that the military would be in service [of] that,” explained Steinberg.
The diplomat assured nervous lawmakers that a democratic Egyptian government would be an asset to Washington’s goals in the region. “We believe very strongly that in terms of these interests … a vibrant Egyptian government would be very much in sync with those views and those perspectives,” he said.

Earlier, Obama had stated that “what is absolutely clear is that we are witnessing history unfold. It is a moment of transformation that is taking place because the people of Egypt are calling for change.”

“Going forward, we want those young people and we want all Egyptians to know that America will continue to do everything that we can to support an orderly and genuine transition to democracy in Egypt,” he pointed out.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared Thursday that it was up to the Egyptian people to decide their future after Mubarak’s statement, when he held a meeting with U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon. “It is up to the Egyptian people to find a way and to do it according to their own Constitution, norms and practices,” Barak explained, adding: “I think we should not pretend that we are more important for the Egyptian people than their own interests. I don’t think I have to respond on this.”

The EU’s chief diplomat Catherine Ashton stressed that the time for Egypt to secure a change in government “is now,” reacting to Mubarak’s televised speech.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his hope that Egypt would move toward democracy and not another form of dictatorship. Sarkozy, the first foreign leader to react to Mubarak’s announcement, said that “it was unavoidable.”

“I hope with all my heart for Egypt’s nascent democracy that they take time to create the structures and principles that will help them find the path to democracy and not another form of dictatorship, religious dictatorship, like what happened in Iran,” Sarkozy emphasized. Sarkozy stated that it is the “moral responsibility” of Western democracies to help Egypt and Tunisia avoid a system that “would be worse” than what they had before recent protests.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Thursday Mubarak’s speech “was not the hoped for step forward.” He explained that “the worries of the international community are rather bigger after this speech than before.” – Agencies