REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, CAIRO - Egypt's interior minister on Sunday pledged to deal decisively with any attempts to destabilize the country, a thinly veiled warning to supporters of ousted President Mohammed Mursi occupying two squares in Cairo in a month-long stand-off with the security forces. Antiwar wrote that the death toll had reached 120 people and thousands other wounded in Saturday clash.

"I assure the people of Egypt that the police are determined to maintain security and safety to their nation and are capable of doing so," Mohammed Ibrahim told a graduation ceremony at the national police academy. "We will very decisively deal with any attempt to undermine stability," said Ibrahim, who is in charge of the police.

Ibrahim's comments added pressure on Mursi's backers three weeks after the Islamist president was ousted in a military coup that followed days of street protests by millions calling on him to step down.

Ibrahim, who had been appointed by Mursi, took an uncompromising stance in a news conference on Saturday, accusing the pro-Mursi side of provoking bloodshed to win sympathy and suggesting that authorities could move against the two main pro-Mursi protest camps: one outside the Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque in eastern Cairo and another in Nahda Square near the main campus of Cairo university.

"Soon we will deal with both sit-ins," Ibrahim said.

According to Antiwar, exact figures are difficult to come by on casualties with the junta overtly lying, but the death toll reports consistently hover around 120 and the wounded has been estimated at 4,500 by the Muslim Brotherhood, which organized the rallies.

Interim Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a longtime pro-democracy campaigner who backed the military's ouster of Morsi, raised one of the few notes of criticism of Saturday's bloodshed.

"I highly condemn the excessive use of force and the fall of victims," he wrote in a tweet, though he did not directly place blame for the use of force. He added that he is "working very hard and in all directions to end this confrontation in a peaceful manner."

UN: respect human rights and investigate the deadliest clash

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also asked security forces to "act with full respect for human rights" and demonstrators to "exercise restraint."

While the UN's human rights chief Navi Pillay issued also condemned the violence. In a Sunday statement, she said: "Despite all the warnings, all the calls for restraint, more than 150 Egyptians have died during protests over the past month, not just in Cairo but in other cities as well," she said. 

"I fear for the future of Egypt if the military and other security forces, as well as some demonstrators, continue to take such a confrontational and aggressive approach. Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood have the right to protest peacefully like anyone else."

Pillay called for a "credible, independent investigation" into the killings and punishment for those responsible. "Given what has happened in recent days, further protests are inevitable, and the onus is clearly on both the security forces and the protesters to ensure there is no repetition of yesterday's terrible and deeply tragic events."

Neither side in the Egyptian conflict, however, has shown much taste for reconciliation. 

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