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US hampering Egypt uprising: Iran

TEHRAN — Iran accused arch-foe the United States of hampering the uprising in Egypt and warned that the tactics used by US officials would end up fuelling hatred towards Washington in the Muslim world.

Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Washington’s dispatch to Cairo of veteran former ambassador Frank Wisner was a move aimed at creating obstacles to the uprising.

“The efforts by US rulers to hamper the movement in the great nation of Egypt by sending their former ambassador to devise devious conspiracies will result in anger and hatred in the Muslim world and among the brave people of Egypt,” the ISNA news agency quoted Mehmanparast as saying.

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama sent Wisner to Cairo with a message to his embattled Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak urging him to announce he would not seek re-election in September in a bid to calm mass protests then in their eighth day.

Mubarak heeded the request from his key ally in a televised address to the nation but protests continued unabated on Wednesday as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to demand that he step down immediately.

Mehmanparast said the White House was adopting the same “old and repetitive” tactics it has been using against Iran.

He said by using such tactics the United States was seeking to “create internal tensions and widen the rifts within the Egyptian people.”

There was pandemonium on the streets of Cairo on Wednesday as supporters of Mubarak clashed repeatedly with anti-regime protesters. At just one makeshift first aid centre set up near the central Tahrir Square, medics said they received at least 500 injured.

Obama has led world leaders in calling for the transition from Mubarak’s rule to start immediately, but the Egyptian foreign ministry rejected such calls saying they “sought to inflame the internal situation”.