President Obama’s special envoy delivered a message to embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday about the need to prepare for an “orderly transition” of power in the country, a U.S. official said.
Word of the meeting between retired ambassador Frank Wisner and Mubarak came as Al Arabiya television reported that the longtime autocratic leader would say in a speech that he will step down at the next election but stay in office until then to meet demands of mass protests now rocking the nation.
During the course of the conversation, Wisner told Mubarak that it was the U.S “view that his tenure as president is coming to a close,” a U.S. official told the Associated Press.
Wisner also made contact with prominent Egyptian political activist Mohamed ElBaradei to discuss a political transition.
ElBaradei, the retired head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, has demanded Mubarak quit office and said he was ready to play a role in any shift to a democratic system in Egypt.
“Our embassy in Cairo maintains an active outreach to a wide range of political and civil society representatives in Cairo, and the mission has been especially busy in the last several days to help convey our strong support for an orderly transition,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
“One such contact was between the ambassador and Mohamed ElBaradei today,” it added in the statement sent to Reuters in Cairo, referring to U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey.
At least one million people rallied across Egypt calling for Mubarak to give up power, piling pressure on a leader who has towered over Middle East politics for 30 years to make way for a new era of democracy in the Arab nation.
Full report here.
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