El-Baradei to EU Foreign Ministers: What happened in Egypt is a 'coup'

Egyptian media are reporting that former interim Vice Prime Minister Mohamed El-Baradei has described the events in Egypt on 30 June as a “military coup”. El-Baradei’s statement came during his meeting with EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

According to the media reports, Dr El-Baradei told the European foreign ministers that he had a plan to disperse the Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins at the Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Nahda Squares in a peaceful manner, through political dialogue; however, the army and the police instead harried to disperse the sit-ins by force.

Dr Ahmed Darraj, the former chairman of the Constitution Party, said that “Dr El-Baradei would not dare to describe what happened in Egypt on 30 June as a ‘military coup’,” explaining that El-Baradei is a member of the National Salvation Front, and thus he knows very well that what happened on 30 June is a “public movement”. Darraj said, “I believe that El-Baradei’s description of 30 June is incorrect.”

Meanwhile, Khaled Daoud, the spokesman of the Constitution Party, refused to comment on El-Baradei’s statement, saying, “I have no information about that.” Daoud added that, “El-Baradei had asserted to us his commitment to the principles of the revolution in order to achieve democracy.”