Egypt interim leader offers Brotherhood roles

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The Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist Nour Party will be offered ministerial positions in the transitional government, officials have said, hours after the appointment of a new prime minister.

Hazem el-Beblawi, a liberal economist and former finance minister, was named the new prime minister, the presidential spokesman, Ahmed al-Muslimani, said.

Liberal opposition chief and Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei was named vice president for foreign relations, Muslimani said on Tuesday.

The appointments were followed by an announcement that ministerial posts in the new government would be offered to members of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, and to the hardline Islamist Nour Party.

State media quoted a presidential spokesman as saying: “There is no objection at all to including members of those two parties in the government.”

The administration moves come almost a week after the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and chose chief justice Adly Mansour to head the Arab world’s most populous country.