Egyptian protesters vow to escalate pressure on Mubarak:
Representatives of the Egyptian democracy movement vowed on Sunday to escalate the pressure for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, still as his federal sought to portray itself as immensely on the way to successfully negotiating an end to the uprising now in its 13th day.
In a historic first, Vice President Omar Suleiman met through representatives of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood as portion of a collection of throughout 50 opposition workers which included prominent politicians and a few youth organizers.
The encounter itself was remarkable for bringing up constituents of the brotherhood — Egypt's record opposition movement — and the autocratic authorities the has for ages repressed it as an Islamist threat.
But the possible outcome appeared lowered momentous. The statement Suleiman released subsequent to the meeting — widely reported on district television and instantly a focal rate in Washington — did not allude to the important disagreement in Mubarak's ouster or the military-backed dictatorship. While it declared the meeting had came up with a "consensus" virtually the way to reform, combined with the promise to craft a committee to recommend constitutional unrest by the beginning of March, a large amount of of the things laid out got around individuals President Mubarak outlined in his survive speech to the country.
The municipal has persistently tried to woo fall Egyptians away for the protesters by publicizing concessions the current collapse very brief of the demonstrators' demands.
The opposition groups, a disparate array such a has no pivotal leadership but has unified across the necessity for Mubarak's ouster, eventually dismissed the government's say of progress as mere propaganda. Brotherhood leaders believed properties got meeting amongst Suleiman — the brains number one who has become the public deal with of the Mubarak municipal — merely to reiterate the movement's demands and demonstrate properties got not refusing to talk.
However, the statement played differently in Washington, at which it appeared to convey the sense this Suleiman was listening to the Obama administration's behind-the-scenes counsel.
In a line of private telephone conversations, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has pressed for a obvious roadmap and timetable of reforms, initiating amongst the legalization of political parties, the end of one-party rule, and protections for political opponents and the media.
That individuals points got articulated in Suleiman's statement was gratifying to American policy makers pursuing a strategy of slow-and-steady motion toward a few basic goalposts, hoping to put off a repeat of the Islamist domination of the 1979 Iranian revolution.
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