The Muslim Brotherhood is looking for dialogue with the Egyptian presidency with out preconditions.
In a letter dated Sept. 14, outstanding Brotherhood chief and the group’s former commissioner for worldwide relations Youssef Nada mentioned the “door is open for dialogue” with the Egyptian presidency. “We discovered in politics that setting preconditions foils dialogue,” he added.
Nada’s letter got here in response to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s live speech on Sept. 11 in the course of the launching of the National Strategy for Human Rights, the primary of its sort, which goals to develop Egypt’s human rights report. “Over the previous 90 to 100 years, Egyptian society has been imbued with a selected thought,” Sisi mentioned, in reference to the ideology of the Brotherhood that was based in 1928.
“I’m not in disagreement with them (the Brotherhood), however on the situation that they respect my path and don’t intersect with me or goal me … I’ll settle for [the Brotherhood’s] thought, nevertheless it won’t impose it on me, and it’ll not [use it to] strain me — not solely on me as an individual, but additionally on Egypt and society,” he added.
In his letter, Nada mentioned, “Opening a dialogue with the Egyptian presidency … requires ending the struggling of imprisoned ladies and men and the struggling of their households.”
Over the previous years, the Muslim Brotherhood has sometimes expressed its will to reconcile with the Egyptian state, however to this point initiatives for reconciliation have been conditional. On Aug. 14, 2018, on the fifth anniversary of the violent dispersals of the sit-ins held by supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi in Rabaa and al-Nahda squares, the group introduced a 10-item initiative, calling for early presidential elections.
The initiative again then additional careworn that the group is a nationwide faction and a peaceable group. It additionally underscored the significance of the rights of the victims of the dispersal of the sit-ins and the necessity to obtain justice.
This 12 months, on March 23, Ibrahim Munir, the Brotherhood’s deputy common information, reiterated the group’s readiness to reconcile with the state on a number of circumstances. “If the Egyptian opposition, of which we’re half, is obtainable a dialogue with the regime that covers the circumstances of the detainees and improves the circumstances of the individuals, we won’t refuse. We might be certainly incorrect to refuse,” he mentioned throughout an interview with Al-Jazeera.
In a tweet on Sept. 11, Egyptian opposition journalist Gamal Sultan mentioned Sisi opened the door to reconciliation with the Brotherhood in his speech and mentioned he was prepared to just accept their presence. Sultan argued, nevertheless, that Sisi linked dialogue to a few circumstances: The Brotherhood should acknowledge his authority and legitimacy, they need to not stand in his manner or problem his ruling energy, and so they should not criticize him.
Hassan Nafaa, professor of political science at Cairo College, informed Al-Monitor Sisi’s latest speech was interpreted as a name for reconciliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. “Sisi tried to throw the ball within the group’s court docket and blame it for exploiting the Egyptian individuals’s ignorance and non secular slogans to attain its objectives and achieve energy,” he mentioned.
Nafaa mentioned the Brotherhood’s latest name for reconciliation goals to check the waters and discover the state’s intentions, particularly because it comes within the wake of main worldwide and US strain on Egypt to repair its human rights report.
He mentioned the decision for dialogue follows the Egyptian state’s makes an attempt to appease worldwide strain by proposing a technique to develop human rights in a bid to convey a picture to the world that Egypt has a democratic local weather and seeks to advertise human rights circumstances.
On Sept. 15, a US State Division spokesperson revealed the Joe Biden administration will withhold $130 million value of navy support to Egypt except Cairo meets particular necessities associated to human rights.
Earlier this 12 months, on March 12, 31 nations, together with European nations, america, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, issued a joint assertion addressed to the United Nations Human Rights Council expressing their concern in regards to the violation of freedoms in Egypt. The assertion known as on Egypt to chorus from resorting to anti-terrorism legal guidelines to muzzle opponents, human rights defenders and journalists, and to finish pre-trial detentions.
“These reconciliation steps [by the Brotherhood], nevertheless, stay a mere try and embarrass the state and to indicate that it doesn’t tolerate the opposition and refuses to carry dialogue with it. I don’t anticipate the state to reply positively regardless of worldwide criticism. The Egyptian state sees this group as a menace to its existence and identification,” Nafaa mentioned.
Samir Ghattas, a former parliament member and head of the Middle East Forum for Political and Strategic Studies, informed Al-Monitor, “It’s doable for the state to succeed in some political understandings with the reformist motion throughout the Muslim Brotherhood, however not with the Qutbi motion, which is liable to violence and confrontation with state establishments.”
He famous the state succeeded in exhausting and pressuring the group in order that it may impose its circumstances on it. “That is all of the extra true in mild of the Egyptian-Turkish reconciliation. Egypt had required Turkey to cease funding, supporting and embracing the Brotherhood. This additionally coincides with the waning affect of the group in Morocco and Tunisia. All these components have weakened the group’s negotiating place with the state,” Ghattas added.
On June 24, Turkish authorities had requested journalists affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood to cease their media actions from its lands, whether or not on satellite tv for pc platforms, social networking websites or YouTube. The measure appears to fall throughout the scope of Ankara’s efforts to attain rapprochement with Egypt.
Most not too long ago, in Morocco, the governing Justice and Development Party — the Brotherhood’s department within the North African nation — misplaced most of its seats in parliament in the course of the Sept. 8 legislative elections, gaining solely 12 seats in comparison with 125.
Commenting on the US strain on Egypt, Ghattas mentioned the quantity of support withheld by the Biden administration is relatively small and won’t pose an actual menace to the state. He dominated out an escalation or a suspension of extra support to Egypt by the US administration within the upcoming interval. “For Washington, Cairo is a regional pillar of stability in lots of fields, particularly within the Palestinian file and relations with Israel,” he mentioned.
The USA has been allocating $1.3 billion in annual navy support to Egypt because the signing of the Camp David peace settlement between Egypt and Israel in 1978.
On Might 21, US President Joe Biden thanked Sisi for the Egyptian efforts that had been made to succeed in a cease-fire settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians within the Gaza Strip. He praised the essential function performed by Egyptian officers on this diplomatic course of.
