EU’s top diplomat meets Egypt’s Mursi

By Maggie Fick and Matthew Robinson
Egypt’s rulers allowed an EU envoy to meet deposed President Mohamed Mursi, the first time an outsider was given access to him since the army overthrew him and jailed him a month ago, and she said she found him in good health.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton revealed little about what she called a “friendly, open and very frank” two-hour conversation with Mursi, after she was flown to an undisclosed location to visit him.
“I’ve tried to make sure that his family know he is well,” said Ashton, who has emerged as one of the only figures accepted by both sides as a potential mediator in a conflict that has plunged the most populous Arab state into violent confrontation.
Ashton said Mursi had access to television and was informed about the situation in the country. Nearly 300 people have been killed in violence since Mursi was removed on July 3, including 80 of his supporters gunned down at dawn on Saturday.
Media have speculated about why the military-backed rulers would have allowed her to meet the ousted leader who had been kept incommunicado for a month.
She denied that she carried an offer to Mursi, who faces charges including murder, of “safe exit” if he were to renounce his claim to the presidency.
Many people have suggested such an arrangement could be part of a deal that would allow Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood to leave the streets and join an army-backed “road map” to civilian rule, but would require Mursi to abandon his historic mandate as Egypt’s first freely-elected leader.
Ashton said she would not attempt to characterise Mursi’s positions, which no one has heard since he was overthrown.
“I also told him in my two hour conversation that I was not going to represent his views because in the circumstances he cannot correct me if I do it wrongly,” she said.
Meeting Mursi was a condition of Ashton’s offer to visit Egypt, where she also met with the general who removed him and other top leaders on her second trip in 12 days.
“I said I wouldn’t come unless I could see him (Mursi),” said Ashton, who has emerged this year as the main international envoy in Egypt where the traditional Western ally, the United States, is regarded with extreme suspicion by both sides.
She was flown in a military helicopter to the meeting and said she did not know where she was.
“I saw where he was. I don’t know where he is but I saw the facilities he has,” said Ashton.
Egypt’s authorities say Mursi is being investigated for charges including murder, stemming from a 2011 jailbreak when he escaped detention during protests against former autocrat Hosni Mubarak. His Muslim Brotherhood says the charges are absurd and trumped up to justify his detention.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.