Manu Brabo/Associated Press
A picture of Egypt’s ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, on a barricade in Nasr City, Cairo, the site of a sit-in by Islamists angry about the change in leadership.
CAIRO — The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, met with former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on Monday, marking the first time the former president has been allowed to meet with an international diplomat since he was taken into military custody almost a month ago.
The meeting took place around 9 p.m. and lasted two hours, a spokeswoman for Ms. Ashton, Rasha Serry, said on Tuesday. She did not provide details on the subject of Ms. Ashton’s discussions with the former president or disclose the location of the meeting. Ms. Ashton was expected to release a statement later Tuesday.
Mr. Morsi has not been seen in public since July 3, when Egypt’s military removed him from power, taking the former president and several of his aides into custody and holding them without charge. Members of his family said that they had not been allowed to communicate with him. For weeks, the military resisted calls, including from western allies and the United Nations, to release Mr. Morsi as a good will gesture to his Islamist supporters, who have held continuous sit-ins demanding that he be restored to the presidency.
Last week, prosecutors ordered Mr. Morsi’s formal detention for 15 days pending an investigation into charges related to his escape from prison during the 2011 uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak. The charges were part of an intensifying crackdown against Mr. Morsi’s movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamist groups that have resulted in arrest warrants or detention for dozens of Islamist leaders.
On Monday, the police arrested Aboul-Ela Maadi and Essam Sultan, senior figures in the Islamist al Wasat, or Center Party, according to state news media. Prosecutors issued warrants for their arrests last week, accusing the men of inciting violence and “insulting the judiciary,” a crime under Egyptian law.
Mr. Morsi’s ouster has plunged Egypt into its worst political crisis since the revolution that felled his autocratic predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, in February 2011. The Muslim Brotherhood has demanded the reinstatement of Mr. Morsi, even as the military has laid the ground for an intensifying crackdown on the group.
Ms. Ashton arrived on Sunday, the day after the police officers and armed civilians killed at least 80 of Mr. Morsi’s supporters in the worst mass killing by Egypt’s security services in recent memory. It was the second time in three weeks that the authorities have fired on Islamist protesters. On July 8, more than 60 people were killed outside the Republican Guard House in Cairo, where Mr. Morsi’s supporters had been demonstrating in the belief that the former president was being held inside.
Since her arrival, Ms. Ashton has met with the interim president, Adli Mansour, his vice president, Mohamed ElBaradei, and the defense minister, Gen. Abdul Fattah el-Sisi, as well as Muslim Brotherhood leaders who have not been arrested.
In a statement, Ms. Ashton said she was urging Egypt’s interim leaders to make good on their pledge for a cohesive, civilian-led government that included all political factions, including the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies. “This transitional process must lead — as soon as possible — to a constitutional regime, the holding of free transparent elections and the forming of a cabinet with a civilian leadership,” Ms. Ashton said.
In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, told reporters that Secretary of State John Kerry had conferred with Ms. Ashton by phone. “We fully support and appreciate her efforts to calm tensions, prevent further violence, bridge political divides and help lay the basis for a peaceful, inclusive process,” she said.
There were no immediate details on the outcome of Ms. Ashton’s meetings. Mr. ElBaradei told Ms. Ashton that Egypt’s post-Morsi leadership was doing “all that it could in order to reach a peaceful exit to the current crisis,” according to an account of their meeting on Ahram Online.
The Muslim Brotherhood said on its Web site that Ms. Ashton was meeting with at least four members of the Anti-Coup National Alliance, a protest coordination group formed by the Brotherhood and its supporters, at a hotel in Egypt’s Giza district, where the Islamists have been staging a mass sit-in since Mr. Morsi’s ouster. The Brotherhood said the delegation would be “embarking from the platform of constitutional legitimacy, aiming to end the military coup.”
Tensions remained high during Ms. Ashton’s visit, as the Brotherhood and its allies held a number of protest marches Monday — including one to a military location — in defiance of the military’s warnings. Egyptian security officials have issued threats to forcefully dismantle the main Islamist protest sit-in at an intersection in northeast Cairo where tens of thousands of supporters have been living for weeks.
Mr. Morsi’s supporters have called for further mass rallies later on Tuesday.
European Union Foreign Policy Chief Meets With Ousted Egyptian Leader
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