Egypt authorities rush to find peaceful end to pro-Morsi sit-ins

Egypt's highest security body warned Sunday that the clock is ticking for a peaceful end to the standoff over sit-ins by supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, suggesting that authorities will break up the protests unless mediation efforts produce results soon.

More than a month after the military overthrew Morsi, thousands of the Islamist leader's supporters remain camped out in two main crossroads in Cairo demanding his reinstatement.

Egypt's military-backed interim leadership has issued a string of warnings for them to disperse or security forces will move in, setting the stage for a potential showdown.

Also Sunday, authorities announced that a court case accusing the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and his powerful deputy of inciting violence will start Aug. 25. Morsi hails from the Brotherhood.

A top US official visiting Cairo urged all sides to find a peaceful resolution to the standoff to avoid a repeat of violence that has killed more than 250 people — at least 130 of whom pro-Morsi protesters shot dead by security forces — since the July 3 military coup.

While diplomats raced to find a compromise, the Egyptian interim government signaled that its patience with the pro-Morsi sit-ins was running out.

The National Defense Council, which is led by the interim president and includes top Cabinet ministers, said the timeframe for any negotiated resolution should be "defined and limited." The council also said any negotiated resolution would not shield from legal proceedings what it called "law-breakers" and others who incite against the state.

The group called on the protesters to abandon the sit-ins and join the political road map announced the day of Morsi's ouster.

With the constitution adopted last year suspended and the legislature dominated by Morsi's supporters dissolved, the road map provides for a new or an amended constitution to be put to a national referendum later this year and presidential and parliamentary elections early in 2014.

In a move that underlined the government's resolve in dealing with the protests — now in their second month — Egyptian authorities denied Yemen's Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkul Karman entry into Egypt after she landed at Cairo airport on Sunday.

Karman, the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace prize, has stated her opposition to Egypt's military coup and said she had intended to join the pro-Morsi sit-in protests. She won the prize for her role in protests in Yemen in 2011 that forced longtime dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh from office.

Airport officials did not say why she was denied entry, only that her name had been placed by various security agencies on an airport stop list. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media

Envoys in Egypt visit jailed Brotherhood leader

Western and Arab envoys visited ahigh-ranking member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood in jail on Monday, the state news agency reported, to press an international bid to defuse the crisis ignited by President Mohamed Morsi's downfall.

The envoys met deputy Brotherhood leader Khairat El-Shaterjust after midnight, having received permission from the prosecutor general to visit him at Tora prison, south of Cairo,the state news agency MENA reported.

The report citing "an informed source" contradicted anearlier government denial of a visit by the envoys from the United States, European Union, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

MENA gave no further details. Earlier, the Doha-based AlJazeera news channel reported the meeting had taken place. Thereports could not be independently confirmed.

Shater is deputy leader of the group that propelled Morsi tooffice last year in Egypt's first democratic presidential election. Seen as the Brotherhood's main political strategist,he was arrested after Morsi's downfall on charges of inciting violence.

The international mediation effort is helping to contain theconflict between Morsi's backers and the interim government installed by the military that overthrew him on July 3, following mass protests against his rule.

The army-backed government said on Sunday it would givemediation a chance but warned that time was limited.

Thousands of Morsi supporters remain camped out in two Cairosit-ins, which the government has declared a threat to nationalsecurity and pledged to disperse.

The authorities say the Brotherhood has incited violence,accusing it of engaging in terrorism - a charge the movement denies as it grapples with one of the toughest moments in its 85-year history.

The crisis has left Egypt, the Arab world's biggest nation,more dangerously divided than at any point since the downfall of US-backed strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and raised questionsover the future of its nascent democracy.

Morsi became Egypt's first freely elected leader in June 2012. But fears that he sought to establish himself as a new dictator coupled with a failure to ease economic hardships afflicting most of its 84 million people led to huge street demonstrations on June 30, triggering the army move.

Court sets date for trial of shater others

The military has laid out a plan that could see a new headof state elected in roughly nine months. The Brotherhood, an movement that spent decades in the shadows before Mubarak's downfall, says it wants nothing to do with the plan.

However, diplomats say the group knows Morsi will not returnas president and wants a face-saving legal formula for him tostep down that guarantees it a stake in the political future.

Almost 300 people have been killed in political violence since Morsi's overthrow, including 80 shot dead by security forces in a single incident on July 27. Much of the Brotherhood's leadership is in custody.

On Sunday, a Cairo court announced that the top leader ofthe Brotherhood and two other officials including Shater wouldgo on trial in three weeks' time for crimes including incitementto murder during protests in the days before Morsi was toppled.

That could complicate efforts to launch a political process,encourage national reconciliation and avert further bloodshed.

The interim administration has said it wants political reconciliation to include the Brotherhood but says the groupmust first renounce and halt violence.

Suggesting an appetite for compromise, a spokesman for theMursi camp said on Saturday it wanted a solution that would"respect all popular desires," an apparent recognition of thestrength of the protests against his one year in power.

During a meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State WilliamBurns and European Union envoy Bernadino Leon on Saturday, thepro-Morsi delegation also said they would be willing tonegotiate with politicians that backed Mursi's ouster.

But they are also seeking the restoration of a constitutionsuspended when Mursi was deposed and want the military, together with army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, out of politics.

Morsi is being held at an undisclosed location and facing aprobe into accusations including murder.

In the United States, which supplies Egypt with $1.5 billionin aid each year, US Senator Lindsey Graham said the Egyptianarmy must move "more aggressively" to hold elections. He saidfuture US aid will hinge upon a return to civilian rule.

US President Barack Obama has asked Graham and SenatorJohn McCain to travel to Egypt to meet members of the newgovernment and the opposition.

"The military can't keep running the country. We needdemocratic elections," Graham said in a CNN interview.

Washington has been grappling with how to respond to thesituation in Egypt, for decades an important ally in its Middle East policy.

"I want to keep the aid flowing to Egypt, but it has to bewith the understanding that Egypt is going to march toward democracy, not toward a military dictatorship. And that's themessage we're going to send," Graham said.

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