Supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi planned new
rallies on Friday, calling for protests to begin after the Muslim Friday
prayers at noon.
The government had said it held off from breaking up the protest
camps in Cairo out of respect for the holy month of Ramadan and to give mediators
from foreign countries a chance to peacefully end the crisis.
This as Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said late on Thursday that
the government will take action to protect its citizens.
"We are trying to find a balance between the need to bring
back security and fight outlaws and at the same time give to those who have
refused to cooperate so far the opportunity" to do so, he said.
Egypt's interim government has
promised its own transition plan, leading to new elections in nine months time.
But what role Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood would have in this, if any at all, is
unclear. Most of its leaders have been jailed.
More than 300 people have been killed in
political violence since Morsi's overthrow and the security forces have
threatened to dismantle two protest camps where his supporters are making a
stand, raising concern that more lives will be lost.
Turkish president urges restraint
in Egypt:
Turkish President Abdullah Gul
appealed to Egypt's army-installed government on Friday to return the country
swiftly to democratic rule and allow all parties to take part in the political
process.
In an article published in the Financial
Times, Gul urged the Egyptian authorities to release the detained former
president, Islamist Mohamed Morsi, who was overthrown by the army last month,
but stopped short of calling for his return to office.
The Turkish head of state, a member of the
moderate Islamist AK party, also called on all sides to act with restraint and
avoid violence.
"The Egyptian people have almost been
split into two camps, each of which is rallying dangerously against the other.
This situation is worrying and unsustainable," he wrote.
Turkey is not without its own
political troubles. Protests broke out in June against Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan, accused by his critics of becoming increasingly authoritarian, and
have continued sporadically despite heavy police repression.
Erdogan accused Western
governments of double standards for failing to condemn the events in Egypt as a
military coup or the killing of Muslim Brotherhood demonstrators by security
forces while criticizing Turkey for using tear gas against protesters.
LBCI/REUTERS/AP