" egyptian officials are still insisting that Hosni Mubarak is not leaving yet, but they are hoping the United States softens its pressure on that after negotiations on the transition get underway this weekend, a U.S. analyst in close touch with Cairo authorities said.
Negotiations are set to get underway Saturday at 10 AM between Egyptian officials and several opposition leaders, Stephen P. Cohen said Friday.
"They have managed to get a lot of people [from the opposition] into it," said Cohen, who is sympathetic to Egypt’s military leaders. Among those Cohen said agreed to come: former Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa, former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, representatives of young blogger/Internet activists, the Waft and Nasserist parties.
Egyptian Vice President Gen. Omar Suleiman is still firm that Mubarak won't depart yet, Cohen said. And as yet, the Muslim Brotherhood has not agreed to enter negotiations with the government until he does.
Suleiman, Egyptian Defense Minister Hussein Tatwani and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq "are hoping that the United States will understand once they see the negotiations start," he said, adding that Cairo’s resentment at what it sees as U.S. interference in Egypt’s internal affairs is high -- resentment reflected in continued attacks on foreigners and journalists Friday that included the destruction of Al Jazeera's Cairo bureau.
But the Egyptian officials were pleased, Cohen said, that the situation was mostly peaceful Friday and pro-Mubarak and anti-Mubarak protesters were mostly kept apart – a development President Barack Obama praised in remarks Friday with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Cohen predicted that the old regime is likely to back Prime Minister Shafiq – the former head of the Egyptian Air Force – as its preferred presidential candidate. Mubarak was a former commander of Egypt’s Air Force."
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