Reconciliation initiative with Brothers remains murky

Amid court rulings and committees dealing with the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm the Freedom and Justice Party, there are still reports of attempts at mediation.

In statements to the privately owned Al-Masry Al-Youm, jurist Ahmed Kamal Abul Magd said he had met with Amr Darrag and Mohamed Ali Beshr, of the FJP and the Brotherhood, to discuss national reconciliation.

Abul Magd said that he doesn't expect a direct response from these figures, but for them to relay these messages to the group’s leadership. He added that national reconciliation will benefit all parties and that if the Brotherhood rejected reconciliation, it would lose out.

Abul Magd told Al-Masry Al-Youm that a general condition for possible negotiations is for the Brotherhood to give up their call for the reinstatement of President Mohamed Morsi, ousted by the military on July 3.

In his attempt to mediate, Abul Magd called for the release of Brotherhood leaders, attracting harsh criticism from liberal politicians.

In a statement to the privately owned portal Masrawy, Cabinet spokesperson Sherif Shawky said that the government has adopted Abul Magd’s initiative and that the Ministry of Transitional Justice will handle any propositions for reconciliation.

Meanwhile, in a previous interview with Mada Masr, Darrag speculated that perhaps he is one of few Brotherhood figures not to be arrested, unlike most of the leadership and members of the Guidance Bureau who are all facing charges, because he is seen as a good communicator. “Maybe it’s useful for us to be free to communicate,” he told Mada Masr.

Darrag had also previously expressed the difficulty of talking about reconciliation in the wake of violence perpetrated by the regime against the Brotherhood.