Obama wants ‘representative government in Egypt’

WASHINGTON - The outcome of the ongoing unrest in Egypt is not a choice only between Islamist militants and the security of a dictatorship, US President Barack Obama said.

In a live interview with Fox Television Sunday evening, shortly before the network broadcast the annual Super Bowl of American football, Obama was asked about the situation in Egypt, where a wide spectrum of opposition groups began negotiating with the government for a solution to nearly two weeks of massive demonstrations and intermittent violence.

Obama said that the Muslim Brotherhood does not have majority support in Egypt, but he avoided directly answering a question about whether the long-banned Islamist group was a threat.

“They are well-organised and there are strains of their ideology that are anti-US. There’s no doubt about it,” Obama said.

“But here’s the thing that we have to understand: there are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt. There are a whole bunch of educators and civil society in Egypt that wants to come to the fore as well. And it’s important for us not to say that our only two options are either the Muslim Brotherhood or a suppressed Egyptian people.”

He said that the goal should be democracy.

“What I want is a representative government in Egypt,” Obama said. “And I have confidence that if Egypt moves in an orderly transition process, that we will have a government in Egypt that we can work with together as a partner.”