US Congress delegation starts meetings with government and Brotherhood

A delegation of US Congressmen began a string of meetings with Egyptian politicians on Tuesday, according to MENA, the state news agency.

Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham plan to meet with interim President Adly Mansour and Defense Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The Senators will also meet with Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, who is in Cairo on a US State Department delegation. The two Congress members of the Defense and Armed Forces Committee traveled to Cairo at the request of US President Barack Obama. 

The congressional delegation met with Interim Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi on Tuesday afternoon. 

Later in the day McCain and Graham held a press conference, during which they pushed for the release of Brotherhood figures.  The two legislators maintained the position that the overthrow of deposed President Mohamed Morsi was a coup. When asked to define a coup, McCain said "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck ..."

Graham said that the delegation was less concerned with the definitions of the ouster and more with moving forward. Both senators emphasized that the over billion dollars in aid the US delivers to Egypt annually was not in danger.

US officials have said that meetings will take place with a wide swath of Egyptian figures with the goal of moving forward towards an inclusive democratic process.

At a press briefing in Washington Monday, deputy State Department spokesperson Marie Harf confirmed that Burns had met with Khairat al-Shater, the deputy guide of the Muslim Brotherhood. She said he has no set plans as to when he will return to the US — Burns has already extended his trip twice since arriving on Friday. 

Harf said Burns has no plans to meet with deposed President Mohamed Morsi. In a statement on Monday, Muslim Brotherhood spokesperson Gehad al-Haddad said that the Brotherhood refused the request made by international delegations not to discuss the return of Morsi to the presidency, the privately-owned daily Al-Shorouk reported.

Haddad said that Shater ended the meeting with Burns, who was with the Qatari and Emirati foreign ministers and EU Special Representative Bernadino Leon, referring them to Morsi instead.

MENA reported that McCain and Graham would also meet with Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as members of the National Coalition for Legitimacy, an umbrella group calling for Morsi's reinstatement.

The spokesperson and co-founder of the Tamarod movement, Mahmoud Badr, posted to Facebook that the movement would not be meeting with McCain during his visit, saying that the movement “has grown tired of the number of foreign visits to Egypt, and calls on the international community to leave Egypt alone to decide its fate.”

Ahmed al-Moslemany, a media advisor to President Adly Mansour, said in a statement Tuesday that Egypt is able to protect the state and the revolution.