UN SECURITY COUNCIL URGES END TO VIOLENCE IN EGYPT
New York, 9 Shawwal 1434/16 August 2013 (MINA) – The U.N. Security Council urged all parties in Egypt on Thursday to end the violence and exercise maximum restraint after hundreds of people were killed when troops and police crushed protests seeking the return of deposed President Mohamed Morsy.
“The view of council members is that it is important to end violence in Egypt and that the parties exercise maximum restraint,” Argentine U.N. Ambassador Maria Cristina Perceval told reporters after the 15-member council met on the situation.
The 15-member Security Council was briefed on the situation in Egypt behind closed doors by U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson. The meeting was jointly requested by council members France, Britain and Australia, according to Egypt Independent report quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
Cairo’s military-backed rulers ordered the storming of pro-Morsy protest camps after dawn on Wednesday, six weeks after the army overthrew the country’s first freely elected leader. Egypt’s government says 578 people were killed and 4201 injured.
“The members first of all expressed their sympathy to the victims and regretted the loss of lives,” said Perceval, who is council president for August. “There was a common desire on the need to stop violence and to advance national reconciliation.”
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had earlier also called for the U.N. Security Council to convene quickly after what he described as a massacre in Egypt and rounded on Western nations for failing to stop the bloodshed.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that the United States was cancelling joint military exercises with Egypt next month, saying normal U.S. cooperation cannot continue in light of the armed forces’ bloody crackdown.
Egypt Crackdown: UN Security Council Urged By Turkey To Meet Over Violence
Meanwhile in Ankara, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday accused the West of ignoring bloodshed in Egypt and called on the United Nations Security Council to meet urgently to discuss the situation in the country where hundreds of people were reported killed.
In a televised statement before departing for a visit to Turkmenistan, Erdogan also said Egypt’s leaders should stand a “fair and transparent” trial for what he called a “massacre” that unfolded live on televisions as police smashed two protest camps of supporters of the deposed Islamist president.
He again called for the release from custody of ousted President Mohammed Morsi and other members of his government and said Egypt’s current leaders should follow the example of Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, who resigned as Egypt’s interim vice president in protest of the violence.
Erdogan, who leads an Islamic-based party, had strongly backed Morsi as an example for the Arab world of a democratically elected, pro-Islamic leader. He has frequently accused the West for tacitly supporting Morsi’s ouster and failing to call the July 3 military intervention that deposed him “a coup.”
“Those who ignore the coup and don’t even display the honorable behavior of calling a `coup’ a `coup,’ share in the guilt of the massacre of those children,” Erdogan said. “Anyone or any international organization that remains silent and takes no action has the blood of those innocent children on their hands, just like those who carried out the coup.”
The Obama administration has avoided calling Morsi’s ouster a “coup” lest that trigger U.S. law which would bar aid to Egypt’s new military government.
The Turkish leader also spoke of a “conspiracy” against the Islamic world, suggesting there were efforts to prevent Islamic governments from taking office.
“You have ignored (the Palestinian territories), you have ignored Syria and still do,” Erdogan said. “At this stage what right do you have to speak of democracy, of universal values, of human rights and freedoms?” (T/P013/E1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
