Egypt army backs gradual power transition, urges protestors to disperse

Egypt’s military has thrown its weight behind President Hosni Mubarak’s decision not to resign but to transfer most of his powers to his vice president, an official statement said on Friday.
several hundred protesters, enraged by Mubarak’s refusal to step down immediately, have gathered outside the presidential palace in Cairo earlier Friday.
The protesters are separated from the al-Ouruba palace gate by four army tanks and barbed wire. Army troops at the scene Friday are not preventing more protesters from joining the crowd.
It’s not immediately known whether Mubarak was at the palace in the Heliopolis area.
The army’s statement – the second in two days – came after a meeting of the military’s Supreme Council, led by the defense minister, showing the army’s support a decision to pass over some of Mubarak’s powers to Vice President Omar Suleiman.
The military says it endorses Mubarak’s plan for a peaceful transfer of power and free and fair presidential elections later this year.
In addition, the statement said that the army agreed to the demand to lift the emergency law "as soon as current circumstances end," conceding a key demand to anti-government protesters but indicating it wanted them off the streets.
The army said in "Communique No. 2" that it "confirms the lifting of the state of emergency as soon as the current circumstances end," a promise that would remove a law imposed for 30 years that protesters say is used to stifle dissent.
In an interview published just hours before the military’s statement supporting Mubarak’s gradual transition of power, Egyptian reformist and opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei said the army "has to side with the people."
"During the transition in Egypt we need the army to defend the early stages of democracy," he added, rejecting the prospect of Suleiman receiving some of Mubarak’s powers.
"The people on the street feel the same way about Suleiman as they feel about Mubarak. He is to them only a mirror image of Mubarak." ElBaradei said it was too soon to say whether he would run for president.