Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which control one in five parliamentary seats after spectacular gains in recent polls, says it is ready to break a long-standing taboo and engage in contacts with Washington.
The Islamist movement’s spokesperson Issam al-Aryan welcomed the comments of a senior United States State Department official who said Washington is likely to seek contacts with the Brotherhood.
”We, as representatives of the Egyptian nation, will not refrain from making contacts if they are in the interest of Egypt,” al-Aryan said, two days after his movement secured one-fifth of Parliament.
Twenty percent of the next Parliament will be members of the Muslim Brotherhood, making the Islamist organisation the most substantial opposition the pro-US regime of President Hosni Mubarak will have faced in 24 years.
The US administration has gone to great lengths not to mention even the name of the Islamist movement — still officially banned in Egypt — and only acknowledged the victory of an unprecedented number of ”independents”.
But a senior State Department official said on Thursday on condition of anonymity: ”I would expect us to meet with the independent candidates.”
Speaking on the record, spokesperson Adam Ereli said Washington welcomed the results of Egypt’s month-long parliamentary polls and the broadening of opposition and independent representation.
Al-Aryan’s reaction to the US overture nevertheless was short of enthusiastic and the Islamist official described it simply as Washington’s ”acknowledgement of the reality on the ground”.
He also expressed his movement’s widely shared frustration with US President George Bush’s regional policies.
”We have condemned US policy in this region since the end of World War II, especially policies related to the Zionist entity, control of oil resources and the occupation of Iraq,” al-Aryan said.
But he seemed determined to sidestep the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, which some observers say has played on Western fears of Islamism to obtain Washington’s renewed confidence despite a poor human rights record.
”We do not accept that dictatorial Arab regimes use Islamists as a means of scaring away or blackmailing in order to hamper democratisation,” Aryan said.
The current US administration has been divided on what stance to adopt towards the Muslim Brotherhood, which has benefited from the US push for democratisation in the Middle East.
”It’s a mistake to believe that the US administration or even the neo-cons have a united position on this issue,” said Mustafa Kamel al-Sayyed, a professor of political science at the American University in Cairo.
Successive US ambassadors in Cairo have differed, with Bob Pelletreau and David Welch in principle favouring contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood and Ed Walker less inclined to dialogue.
Liz Cheney, the US vice-president’s daughter and the overseer of the Middle East Partnership Initiative, has also been reluctant to talk to the Muslim Brotherhood, which she argues cannot be considered as a democratic force.
A US diplomatic source in Cairo admitted that official contacts with the Brotherhood had been systematically ruled out until now, while European embassies have maintained a channel of contacts.
”We have meetings with them but in the professional unions they control, never at the headquarters of their movement, which remains banned under Egyptian law,” a European diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
”Since they are just as pragmatic as the US are, it would be natural for them to start talking,” the diplomat added.
But both the Cairo regime and Washington have so far been categorically opposed to the legalisation of the Brotherhood as a political party, one of the Islamist movement’s main demands.
Hugh Roberts, North Africa project director for the International Crisis Group think tank, even argued that the spectacular electoral gains of the Muslim Brotherhood could ”pour cold water on Washington’s enthusiasm for democratisation”. — Sapa-AFP