AFP/Cairo


Senior US diplomat Bill Burns yesterday urged Egypt’s divided factions to engage in dialogue and end violence, two weeks after the military ousted the country’s first freely elected president.
“The first priority must be to end violence and incitement, prevent retribution, and begin a serious and substantive dialogue among all sides and all political parties,” Burns said.
Burns also condemned a fortnight of deadly attacks in the restive Sinai Peninsula, but said the situation in war-ravaged Syria would not be repeated in Egypt, according to an Arabic translation.
“I don’t think that Egypt is in danger of repeating the tragedy that we see in Syria today.”
The visit by the undersecretary of state is the first to Egypt by a senior US official since the military toppled Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in a popularly backed coup on July 3.
Mursi’s overthrow after massive nationwide protests demanding his resignation has plunged Egypt into turmoil.
Burns was speaking after holding talks with army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, military-appointed president Adly Mansour and caretaker prime minister Hazem al-Beblawi.
Tamarod, the movement that spearheaded the grassroots campaign against Mursi, said it rejected an invitation to meet the US envoy yesterday, citing Washington’s “interference” in Egypt and its failure to support their cause from the outset.
“We rejected the invitation... because the US did not stand with the Egyptian people from the beginning,” Islam Hammam, one of the group’s organisers, said.
A State Department spokeswoman confirmed Burns also did not meet with any members of Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, who say the Islamist president’s ouster was an affront to democracy.
Burns reiterated Washington’s call for the army to halt its arbitrary arrests of Brotherhood members.
“We’ve called on the military to avoid any politically motivated arrests and we have also called upon those who differ with the government to adhere to their absolute obligation to participate peacefully.”
Burns’ two-day visit comes as the authorities tighten the screws on Mursi’s backers, freezing the assets of 14 top Islamists, and with Egypt rocked by a wave of deadly attacks, notably in the Sinai.
Three factory workers were killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in the restive peninsula, medics said.
In Paris, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned against “revenge” and “retribution”, and denounced the arrests of Brotherhood officials.