Cairo: Egypt’s interim government voiced “strong resentment” on Tuesday at comments by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan backing ousted Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.
The foreign ministry expressed “strong resentment at comments like these, which... represent a clear intervention in internal Egyptian affairs,” its spokesman Badr Abdulatty said.
The Turkish premier said on Sunday that democratically elected Mursi, who was ousted in a popularly backed military coup on July 3, was Egypt’s only legitimate president.
“Currently, my president in Egypt is Mursi because he was elected by the people,” Erdogan, who like Mursi hails from an Islamist party, said in an interview with a Turkish newspaper.
Abdulatty called on Turkish officials to put “the historic relationship and shared interests” of their two countries above any “narrow party interests”.
A spokesman for Egypt’s interim president also criticised the Turkish leader’s remarks, calling them “inappropriate” and an “intervention” in Egypt’s domestic affairs.
“It is down to Ankara to respect the will of the Egyptian people who went out on June 30,” Ahmad Al Muslimani said in comments reported by Egyptian daily Al Ahram’s website.
