Two high-profile US senators held talks in Egypt's capital today, the latest leg of a diplomatic flurry to defuse a crisis sparked by the army's ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham met with army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the military said in a statement, as six British MPs held talks with foreign minister Nabil Fahmy, with Egyptian officials stressing the desire for national reconciliation.
As tensions mounted over the looming breakup of two major sit-ins staged by Morsi loyalists, vice president Mohamed ElBaradei urged the Muslim Brotherhood to embrace a peaceful solution and called on the media to stop "demonising" the group.
Morsi has been formally remanded in custody on suspicion of offences committed when he escaped from prison during the 2011 revolt that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.
Today, prosecutors ordered the detention of two of his aides for 15 days pending investigation into deadly clashes between supporters and opponents of the deposed president outside the Ittihadiya presidential palace last December.
Morsi's secretary Ahmed Abdel-Aati and his security advisor Ayman Hodhod join a string of Islamist leaders in jail, including two deputies of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt's political crisis, sparked by the military's July 3 overthrow of Morsi, has paralysed the country and deepened political polarisation and social divisions.
Morsi loyalists, mostly Brotherhood members, say the ouster of the country's first freely elected president violates democratic principles and nothing short of his reinstatement would end their sit-ins.
The interim leadership says there is no turning back on the army-drafted roadmap that provides for new elections in 2014. More than 250 people have been killed since Morsi's ouster.
"We have been so focused on (the sit-in at) Al-Rabaa al-Adawiya that we can't even concentrate on preparing the electoral process," a senior government official told AFP yesterday.
ElBaradei has urged the Brotherhood not to gamble with the lives of pro-Morsi protesters for political gains and "join the peaceful solutions," in an interview in the daily Al-Shorouk.
"Don't count on the security forces dispersing the sit-ins by force, causing a massacre and turning you into victims, for your negotiations," said ElBaradei. It "would only increase the people's anger against you."
But the Brotherhood is standing its ground, with more scattered protests and marches in several parts of the capital today. "Only a political solution to restore continuity of constitutional legitimacy will end crisis," tweeted the group's spokesman Gehad al-Haddad.
Since last week, diplomacy tried to prevail.
US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, EU foreign policy supremo Catherine Ashton, EU envoy Bernardino Leon, Arab diplomats, an African delegation and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle have all travelled to Cairo seeking to defuse the crisis.
