CAIRO: Egypt rejected on Wednesday any foreign assistance in drafting its first constitution scheduled to be written within the next few months. It comes as the United Nations offered to assist Egypt in this endeavor. The Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Amr Roshdy said that Egypt does “not need foreign assistance in writing its new constitution.” “The United Nations has offered to help Egypt in writing the new constitution of the country, but the Foreign Minister has assigned the relevant departments in the ministry to immediately thank the United Nations on its offer and apologize for the lack of acceptance,” he continued. Roshdy statements came in response to questions from reporters about what was attributed to the resident representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) James Rowley, where he said that there is a “need for a referendum on a new constitution must be had to ensure that it represents all segments of the Egyptian society without the exclusion of any group.” He continued to say that the UN would be willing to help Egypt during this stage through sharing different experiences of other countries in the drafting of the constitution “to support the country during the transition to a democratic country based on a constitution.” Roshy added that Egypt “has [had] a written constitution for nearly a century and has the experience and law schools, which made Egypt a country that assists and shares its experience with other countries in this matter, as soon as these countries declared its independence.” And on the referendum on the constitution, Roshdy explained that the roadmap, by the Egyptian government during the transitional period, clearly confirms a referendum on the new constitution of the country, stressing that “drafting the constitution and the referendum is purely an internal Egyptian affair.” BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/qGRIY Tags: Constitution, Draft, featured, FM, UN Section: Egypt, Latest News
