Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi said on Tuesday that the country will honor all international treaties it signed while at the same time work to support the national interests of the country.
Bikya Masr quoted Yasser Ali, Morsi’s spokesman, as having said the president “stresses the country’s respect for international agreements.”
Ali was speaking with reporters who asked about the possibility of amending the 1979 Camp David treaty with Israel.
The comments came after dozens of protesters demonstrated outside the residence of Israel’s ambassador to Egypt in Cairo on Monday night, demanding that the government cease all diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in light of Sunday’s attack along the border between Israel, Egypt and Gaza.
The attack began when terrorists attacked two Egyptian army posts in the Egyptian part of Rafiah with anti-tank rockets and gunfire, killing 16 Egyptian soldiers. The terrorists then tried to infiltrate into Israel using two stolen Egyptian military vehicles, but were foiled by the IDF.
The Muslim Brotherhood, of which Morsi was a member before officially resigning when he was elected president, claimed that Israel was behind the terror attack, saying it “could be attributed to the Mossad, which has been seeking to abort the Egyptian revolution, especially as it had several days ago instructed Israeli citizens who were in Sinai to leave immediately.”
The movement’s statement added that the incident “aims to add problems at the border to those already plaguing the country internally following the collapse of a corrupt system, and attempts to claim the failure of the new Egyptian government that was formed only three days ago.”
Israel dismissed allegations of involvement in the attack. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, “Even the person who says this when he looks at himself in the mirror does not believe the nonsense he is uttering.”
The head of Egyptian intelligence said on Tuesday that Egypt had received intelligence about Sunday’s attack on the Egypt-Israel border before it took place.
Mourad Mowafy told a Turkish news agency that “Despite the detailed information about the attack, we never imagined that a Muslim would kill a Muslim during the meal to end the Ramadan fast day.”
Also on Tuesday, Egypt began to seal off smuggling tunnels into Gaza. A security source said that “the campaign aims at closing all the openings between Egypt and the Gaza Strip that are used in smuggling operations.”
