Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Prize laureate that Egyptian opposition leaders tapped to represent them in peace negotiations, on Thursday defended the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi as the “least painful option” for Egypt to take to negotiate its political crisis.
“We did not have a recall process,” ElBaradei said in an interview with the New York Times. “People ask for the recall process with their feet in Tahrir Square. In my judgment, we could not have waited even one more week.”
ElBaradei also told the Times that on the day of the coup he spoke “at length” with Secretary of State John Kerry and Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s top foreign policy official, about the necessity of removing Morsi from office.
He insisted that military officials told him that Morsi was “treated with dignity and respect” when they detained him on Wednesday, according to the Times.
