Egypt President Mohammad Mursi reaches out to opposition

Cairo: Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi, locked in a political dispute with the opposition, on Wednesday used the release of seven soldiers seized in Sinai, as an occasion to forge national reconciliation.

“The opposition are sons of this country... I call on all sons of this country who are keen on its interests to forge ahead in one system,” Mursi said in a ceremony to welcome the soldiers at a military airport in Cairo.

“The country is more important than all of us,” he told the ceremony, which was attended by senior army commanders including Defence Minister Abdul Fattah Al Sissi.

The secular-leaning opposition has for months been at odds with Mursi, accusing him of seeking to tighten the Muslim Brotherhood’s grip on power. The soldiers’ abduction has been one of the toughest crisis faced by Mursi since taking office almost 11 months ago.

The opposition has accused Mursi of being lenient towards radical Islamists who have reportedly established a foothold in the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula.

Mursi was shown on Wednesday embracing the seven conscripts upon their arrival in Cairo by army helicopter.

He also praised their release as an “example” of cooperation among the state institutions. Mursi did not give details about the circumstances surrounding the soldiers’ release.

A spokesman for the army hinted that their release had been secured after negotiations by the military intelligence service with help from local tribal chiefs in Sinai.

“What happened prompts us to emphasise our keenness to fulfil the demands of the Sinai people and develop it,” Mursi said. He also urged Sinai’s inhabitants to hand over illegally possessed weapons to authorities, pledging to look into their “grievances”.

Residents of the large desert area have repeatedly complained about marginalisation by the state authorities before and after the 2011 revolt that brought Mursi to power.

The opposition, the April 6 movement, commended all those who helped secure the soldiers’ release “without shedding a single drop of blood”. “But we are still waiting for the arrest of the criminals who kidnapped them,” the group said in a statement.

There was no official word on the abductors, thought to be jihadists who seized the soldiers on Thursday to push for the release of relatives detained by Egyptian authorities.