The unexpected meeting between representatives of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the U.S. Department of State in the last week of January 2015 inspired anger in political circles and among Egyptian decision makers. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry expressed its outrage over the meeting, describing it as "incomprehensible". "The U.S. explanations of the meeting are incomprehensible to me," Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said, adding: "We don't understand this communication with a group involved in terrorist attacks against Egyptians." Some media outlets in Egypt slammed the U.S. administration over this, as did some U.S. media, especially that of the Republicans. Spokesperson of the State Department Jen Psaki, defended the meeting, saying it was normal and didn't address the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi. Such meetings, she said, were usual with leaders of opposition groups all over the world. "The meeting was set up by the Centre for the Study of Islam and Democracy, a non-profit organisation. So the visit was not funded, as you know, by us or the U.S. Government. It was also not funded by Georgetown," Psaki said. The official statement of the MB, published on their official website (Ikhwanweb) on January 31, 2015, contradicted U.S. claims. It said that the Egyptian Revolutionary Council (ERC) held meetings with representatives of the White House, the U.S. State Department, members of the U.S. Congress, and a number of American research centres. It said these meetings addressed ten points, including urging the U.S. to stop supporting the "coup" regime and its violations of human rights, the ‘instability' of the regime of President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the ‘flaws' in the Egyptian judicial system which passes mass death sentences against the opposition, the urgent need for the return of the Egyptian social fabric, respecting Egyptians' choice through electoral ballots, keeping the army out of Egyptian political life, and reminding the U.S. administration to pressure the regime in Egypt for the release of the detainees. "The meetings were positive, held in a good atmosphere" the MB statement said. "It ended in a recommendation for further constructive meetings and dialogue to show the true picture of what is happening in Egypt." A representative of the ERC and one of the MBs who attended the meeting with the U.S. department, Judge Waleed Sharaby, announced in his personal Facebook account on February 27, more details of the meeting. He said the ERC included members of the MB, like Maha Azzam, Gamal Heshmat and Abdel Mawgood Dardiry. He said they insisted on the reinstatement of Morsi, and spoke of their meeting with officials of another 72 countries. He promised that after a number of other meetings he would showcase the results achieved in the U.S. in a report. Egyptian politicians expressed their astonishment over the rapprochement between Washington and a terrorist organization. The advisor of the Arab Administrative Development Organization (ARADO) Mostafa Reda, told Al Bawaba Egypt that the U.S. support to the MB had never stopped, but had taken another form. "The MBs want to deliver a message to the Egyptian government that they still exist and have America's support, which reveals the failure of their terrorist operations to gain more political advantages," Reda told Al Bawaba Egypt, adding that the rapprochement between Egypt and other powers, such as Russia and France, had pushed the U.S. to tighten its relations with the MB. Reda said that the Egyptian foreign minister visited Washington to explain the current situation, and the danger of terrorism to the U.S. itself, predicting that the U.S.-MB rapprochement would not last long, because it doesn't serve American interests and shows up its double-standard attitude with regard to terrorism. Dissident MB, Ahmed Rabie Al Ghazali, told Youm7 newspaper that U.S.-MB relations had been extended and were based on the bilateral interests of the two sides. He added that the U.S. had released a statement in 2010 to assert that the MB is not a terrorist organization and that they communicate through American MB leaders. "The State Department continues to speak with the Muslim Brothers on the assumption that Egyptian politics are unpredictable and the Brotherhood still has some support in Egypt," said Egypt expert, Eric Trager, a Fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) on a visit to ‘Washington Free Beacon.' "But when pro-Brotherhood delegations then post photos of themselves making pro-Brotherhood gestures in front of the State Department logo, it creates an embarrassment for the State Department." The Centre for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) was founded in 1998, in what appears to have been a cooperative effort between the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, past CSID board members, including Jamal Barzinji and Taha Al Alwani, both associated with the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and both important leaders in the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood who helped to establish many of the most important U.S. Brotherhood organisations.
