US urges quicker change, but Egypt rejects 'hasty' reforms

The United States has called for Egypt to immediately lift an emergency law and launch democratic reforms as protests on Tuesday appeared to gain momentum in the now three-week-old revolt against President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

Reuters/Dylan Martinez

But Mubarak's newly appointed deputy warned that hasty reforms could bring "chaos".

In a phone call to Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman, US Vice President Joe Biden renewed an appeal for "immediate" and "irreversible" political change, including a wider dialogue with the opposition, a White House statement said.

He also called for Egypt to immediately rescind an emergency law, which it is thought gives the government power to deny basic freedoms.

Suleiman, speaking to local reporters, warned against hasty reforms and said only dialogue and "a programme of continuous steps" could lead to change.

"The second, alternative way, would be a coup - and we want to avoid that” he said, according to the official MENA news agency.

Suleiman said the government would continue talking with opposition groups but affirmed that “there will be no ending of the regime, nor a coup, because that means chaos".

Earlier, the regime had issued a decree forming a committee to oversee constitutional changes ahead of elections due in September.

In other concessions, Mubarak, who has been in power for 30 years, says he will not stand for re-election and on Monday pledged to raise public-sector wages by 15 percent.

But many protestors facing mass unemployment, inflation and repression under Mubarak, only see a future of despair and are demanding the president’s immediate departure.