Hundreds of supporters of Muslim Brotherhood presidential hopeful Khairat el-Shater gather April ... more >A lawmaker from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said Thursday that there would be “no referendum” on the country’s peace treaty with Israel.
“We respect international obligations, period,” Abdul Mawgoud Dardery, a lawmaker from the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), told The Washington Times.
Asked if a Brotherhood-led government would put the 1979 Camp David Accords to a referendum, as many of the Islamist group’s leaders have promised, Mr. Dardery said no.
“No referendum at all concerning international obligations,” he said. “All our international agreements are respected by the Freedom and Justice Party, including Camp David.”
“These are ideas being circulated within Egypt,” Mr. Dardery said of a potential referendum. “That is not the stand of the Freedom and Justice Party.”
• Click here to listen to Dardery speak with TWT.
But Mr. Dardery added that the Brotherhood expects “all parties” to respect the Camp David Accords. “We will never be the first to break with the international agreements,” he said.
On Thursday, FJP presidential candidate Khairat al-Shater filed papers with Egypt’s High Presidential Elections Commission.
The Brotherhood had promised not to field a presidential candidate but changed course Saturday, citing threats to democracy from the military council that has ruled Egypt since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak last year.
Mr. Dardery said the military’s calls to dissolve the parliament threatened to take “Egypt back to square one, where the president has sweeping powers, so we really wanted to make sure that democracy road is protected by the people of Egypt.”
Mr. Dardery is in Washington with other FJP representatives for meetings with White House and State Department officials.
© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
Ben Birnbaum is a reporter covering foreign affairs for The Washington Times. Prior to joining The Times, Birnbaum worked as a reporter-researcher at the New Republic. A Boston-area native, he graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University with a degree in government and psychology. He won multiple collegiate journalism awards for his articles and columns in the Cornell Daily Sun.
By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
First over-the-counter column approved for fast and effective relief from even your worst media-induced headache.
Opinion, analysis, and musings on politics, pop culture, reinvention, and the resultant flotsam and jetsam floating around the right-of-center quadrant of the Left Coast.
Consummate traveler Todd DeFeo explores the unique stories that make destinations worth going to.
We welcome you to the intimate and personal thoughts on the news and events we, as editors, watch, read, and discuss with our writers every day.
Benghazi: The anatomy of a scandal
13 Photos
Vietnam Memorial adds four names
18 Photos
Cinco de Mayo on the Mall
11 Photos
NRA kicks off annual convention
8 Photos
