The Muslim Brotherhood will not speak or meet with Israeli officials and its stance on Israel is not up for discussion, group spokesperson Mahmoud Ghezlan told London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
“It’s illogical to have dialogue, any dialogue, in light of the Israeli practices against the Arab peoples,” the paper quoted him as saying in an article published Wednesday.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor told Israeli radio that Israel has not ruled out talks.
“We will be happy to hold dialogues with whoever wants to have dialogue with us,” Palmor said.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party controls 47 percent of the seats in the newly formed People’s Assembly, but the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is still running the executive branch of Egypt’s government.
Some fear that Islamists will push for ending the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
Western officials met with several Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist leaders after People’s Assembly elections.
Ghezlan said the group had not received a similar invitation from the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, but that any such request would be rejected.
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