SUPPORTERS of Egypt's ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi held firm in their insistence that he be reinstated after talks with a senior US official yesterday.
Following a meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, the political arm of Mr Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood stressed its continued commitment to "legitimacy, which stipulates the return of the president, the constitution and the Shura Council", referring to the upper house of parliament.
The US envoy's visit, which followed trips by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, was the latest move in a diplomatic drive to break the deadlock between Morsi loyalists and the army-installed interim government.
Mr Morsi's supporters have insisted since his July 3 ouster that they would not accept any resolution that did not include his reinstatement. Their latest declaration suggested Mr Burns's visit had failed to shift that position.
"We affirm our welcome of any political solutions proposed on the basis of constitutional legitimacy and rejection of the coup," said the statement from the Freedom and Justice Party. Mr Burns later met Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy to broker a compromise.
Washington also kept up the pressure from afar, with Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel urging army chief General Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi to support an "inclusive political process", the Pentagon said.
The diplomatic push came as The Washington Post published a rare interview with General Sisi, who lashed out at Washington, urging it to pressure Morsi supporters to end their rallies.
The general - who led the military coup that ousted Mr Morsi - warned of police action to disperse such protests.
The US provides $US1.5 billion ($1.68bn) in mostly military aid to Cairo every year, but General Sisi effectively accused President Barack Obama's administration of averting its gaze from Egypt.
"You left the Egyptians, you turned your back on the Egyptians and they won't forget that. Now you want to continue turning your backs on Egyptians?" General Sisi said.
"The US administration has a lot (of) leverage and influence with the Muslim Brotherhood and I'd really like the US administration to use this leverage with them to resolve the conflict."
Asked whether security forces would forcibly disperse the Brotherhood's protest camps, General Sisi said the task would not fall to the army.
"Whoever will clean these squares or resolve these sit-ins will not be the military. There is a civil police and they are assigned to these duties," he said.
"On the 26th of (July), more than 30 million people went out on to the streets to give me support. These people are waiting for me to do something."
On whether he would seek the presidency, General Sisi gave an enigmatic response.
"The most important achievement in my life is to overcome this circumstance, (to ensure) that we live peacefully, to go on with our road map and to be able to conduct the coming elections without shedding one drop of Egyptian blood," he said.
Mr Morsi has been remanded in custody on suspicion of offences committed when he broke out of prison during the 2011 revolt that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.
The Islamist leader, who has been held at an undisclosed location since the coup, refused to talk to the investigating judge in a meeting on Friday, said Mostafa Azab of the Lawyers Against the Coup movement.
Mr Morsi "refused to talk to him and told him he didn't recognise any of the measures being taken against him", Mr Azab said, adding the former president had refused to call a lawyer.
