China, Saudi Arabia break ranks on Egypt

China today told the US it should not interfere in Egypt’s domestic affairs.

Saudi Arabia told President Barack Obama that it would prop up Hosni Mubarak if the US withheld aid.

And Egypt’s foreign minister told EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is planning a visit to Cairo, that he had “no time” to see her.

“I hope that we are all rational enough to go on a gradual change. An abrupt, sudden change might entail very deep risks for Egypt: chaos, violence. I detest, I hate to see the country being engulfed in that kind of violence,” said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

For the moment, the US is continuing to press its ally to make reforms before it is too late.

“The Egyptian government needs to, you know, show that it is serious about pursuing, you know, this transition. And what the US Vice President outlined in his discussion yesterday with Vice President Suleiman, from our standpoint, are the kinds of, you know, very specific and irreversible steps that we believe the people of Egypt are looking for,” said US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.

Resolve has been the Egyptian people’s main weapon. It may be their only one.

EuroNews