EGYPT’S INTERIM PRESIDENT SWEARS IN FIRST POST-MORSI CABINET

Cairo, 9 Ramadhan 1434/17 July 2013 (MINA) – Egyptian interim President Adly Mansour has sworn in the country’s first government since the military ouster of former president, Mohamed Morsi, two weeks ago.

According to Press TV report quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA), a liberal economist Hazem el-Beblawi took his oath before army-appointed interim president to head the interim cabinet as new prime minister.

In the interim government, Chief of the Armed Forces General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who led Morsi’s removal from office, holds the post of first deputy prime minister while retaining his defense portfolio.

Nabil Fahmy, who served as Egypt’s ambassador to Washington from 1999 to 2008, holds the post of foreign minister and Morsi’s interior minister, Mohammed Ibrahim, retains his portfolio.

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There are three women ministers in the new cabinet, including Health Minister Maha el-Rabat.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which had earlier dismissed the interim government’s reconciliation offer as lies, refused to recognize the new cabinet and denounced it as “illegitimate.”

“It’s an illegitimate government, an illegitimate prime minister, an illegitimate cabinet. We do not recognize anyone in it. We do not even recognize their authority as representatives of the government,” Brotherhood spokesman Gehad el-Haddad.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been calling mass rallies against what it calls a military coup against the democratically elected Morsi government, and is demanding the reinstatement of the deposed president.

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“We will not see national reconciliation unless it’s on the basis of the ending of the military coup,” senior Muslim Brotherhood official, Mohamed el-Beltagi, told reporters on Tuesday.

“Beblawi, or anyone from the government of the coup, did not offer us any position in the government, and if they do, we will refuse,” he stressed.

At least 100 people have been killed in an unrelenting wave of violent clashes between Morsi supporters, his opponents and security forces since the president was ousted by the military on July 3 and put under “preventive” arrest. (T/P05/E1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)