Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has welcomed any formal contacts with the United States as a way to clarify its vision but no such contacts have yet been made, reports said on June 30. A senior US official on June 29 said that the United States had decided to resume formal contacts with the Brotherhood, a step that reflects its growing political weight. “We welcome such relationships with everyone because those relations will lead to clarifying our vision. But it won’t include or be based on any intervention in the internal affairs of the country,” reports said citing spokesman Mohamed Saad El-Katatni.
“Until now no contacts have been made with the group or the party,” said Katatni, who is also secretary-general of its new Freedom and Justice party. “This relationship will clarify our general views and our opinion about different issues.” Under the previous policy, US diplomats were allowed to deal with Brotherhood members of parliament who had won seats as independents – a diplomatic fiction that allowed them to keep lines of communication open.