ElBaradei Warns Against Supporting Mubarak Regime
Reuters reports:
NEW YORK, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Mohamed ElBaradei said on Saturday it would be a "major setback" if Washington backed Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak or his deputy to lead a new government and warned that protests could grow "more vicious."
ElBaradei, a veteran diplomat, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leading opposition activist, was asked about remarks from senior U.S. officials that Washington could support Mubarak or his new Vice President Omar Suleiman to lead a transitional government in Egypt.
"If that were true ... that would be a major setback, I can tell you that," he told Reuters in a telephone interview from Cairo.
"If things that I hear today (are true), that would come down like lead on the people who have been demonstrating," he said.
The United States signaled on Saturday that it wanted an orderly transition of power in Egypt that could see Mubarak remaining president until September, an apparent policy shift likely to anger protesters demanding he resign now. [ID:nLDE714008]
"To hear ... that Mubarak should stay and lead the process of change, and that the process of change should essentially be led by his closest military adviser, who's not the most popular person in Egypt, without the sharing of power with civilians, it would be very, very disappointing," ElBaradei said.
