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EGYPT: Opposition won’t talk reform until Mubarak leaves

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Key opposition figures in Egypt’s mounting campaign for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak said Tuesday they won’t sit down with the government for talks on key political and economic reforms until the embattled leader is gone.

Mubarak’s newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman, announced a day earlier that the president had asked him to open a dialogue between the ruling National Democratic Party and other political forces to address public discontent driving the anti-government demonstrations that have paralyzed much of the nation for more than a week.

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‘There can be dialogue but it has to come after the demands of the people are met and the first of those is that President Mubarak leaves,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the former U.N. official and Nobel laureate heading the emerging opposition force National Assn. for Change, told the Arabiya news network.

A former member of parliament from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group and a vital force in political Islam in the Middle East, also said Mubarak’s departure was a precondition to negotiations on the country’s future.

‘Our first demand is that Mubarak goes. Only after that can dialogue start with the military establishment on the details of a peaceful transition of power,” Mohammed Beltagi told the Reuters news agency.

Cairo and other major Egyptian cities have been consumed with unrest for eight days, since opponents of Mubarak’s 30-year rule were emboldened by Tunisian protesters’ success last month in ousting another longtime regional leader, President Zine el Abidine ben Ali.

--Carol J. Williams

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