Jumat 05 Jul 2013 00:39 WIB

Reactions to Mursi ouster reveal domestic politics

Foto: AP/Hassan Ammar

Egyptian soldiers secure the area around Nasser City, where Muslim Brotherhood supporters have gathered to support ousted president Mohammed Mursi, in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, July 4, 2013.

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, The reactions of some countries to the military overthrow of Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi offer a revealing glimpse at their own domestic politics. Here is a look at which side key countries are supporting.

UNITED STATES

The Obama administration is treading carefully, wary of taking sides. President Barack Obama said the US acknowledged the "legitimate grievances of the Egyptian people" while also observing that Mursi won his office in a legitimate election.

TURKEY

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government, which had formed an alliance with Mursi, is speaking out in favor of the ousted leader. Turkey's foreign minister slammed the overthrow as "unacceptable" and called for Mursi's release from house arrest. Turkey itself was hit last month by a wave of protests against Erdogan's perceived authoritarianism and attempts to impose his conservative views on secular society.

SYRIA

Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad is celebrating the overthrow as the end of "political Islam." He is facing an insurgency at home and has refused to step down, calling the revolt an international conspiracy carried out by Islamic extremists and fundamentalist groups such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a branch of the Egyptian group with the same name to which Mursi belongs.

IRAN

Iran is disappointed at the fall of Mursi, with a prominent lawmaker saying the leader failed to reshape Egypt's powerful military and other security agencies. After Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, the new leadership formed military and security forces loyal to the clerics and others. Mursi's government had ended more than three decades of diplomatic estrangement with Iran dating back to the revolution, when Egypt offered refuge to Iran's deposed shah.

TUNISIA

The ruling Islamists in Tunisia, the cradle of the Arab Spring, are condemning the overthrow as a "flagrant coup." Ennahda party leader Rachid Ghannouchi expressed astonishment, saying the overthrow undermined democracy and would feed radicalism.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The United Arab Emirates, one of the Arab world's most outspoken critics of the Muslim Brotherhood, is noting its "satisfaction" at the turn of events in Egypt, according to the official news agency WAM. The UAE claims Islamist groups backed by the Muslim Brotherhood have sought to topple its Western-backed ruling system.