Foreign minister visits France to discuss situation in Egypt

Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, said that his visit to Paris and his meeting with French President Francois Hollande on Sunday 18 August 2013 came to discuss with the friends in France the current situation in Egypt with the aim of unifying the views on what is happening in it based on facts and not hypotheses. In a statement to Saudi Press Agency, he said, "The fact is that that what is happening in the sisterly Arab Republic of Egypt today reflects the will in 30 June of thirty million Egyptians who expressed their desires to conduct early presidential elections as an inevitable result of the deterioration of economic, political and social conditions, which led to the meeting of all political and social leaders and forces to announce a new road map leading Egypt to safety after the former presidency refused to respond to the wishes of millions of Egyptian people. The roadmap included amendment of the constitution and the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections in specific dates involving all political forces. The uprising of thirty million Egyptians can not in any way be described as a military coup as military coups take place under the cover of darkness. In addition, a civilian presidency took power in Egypt in line with the Egyptian constitution. He added, "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia views with much regret what is happening in Egypt of events and developments which amounted to an extent which we see today of war in the streets, the destruction of public and private property, terrorization of citizens, loss of innocent lives, burning of whole governorates of Egypt by a movement that refuses to respond to the Egyptian popular will as well as the rejection of all reconciliation initiatives launched by Sheikh Al-Azhar in addition to Arab and international appeals. They sat in squares of Egypt, paralyzed the movement of life in the surrounding areas, terrorized the population, amassed weapons and ammunition, used women and children as human shields in an attempt to win the sympathy of the public and continued to sit in for more than forty days, which conflicts with the peacefulness of the sit-ins and is incompatible at the same time with all international laws in the expression of freedom of opinion and human rights that prohibit and criminalize terrorizing citizens and attacks on their property with the force of weapons and disabling and paralyzing life. This is not what is called for by the principles of democracy or human rights.