Carter: Egypt Islamists Hope To Modify Peace Pact

By JTA May 28, 2012

Former U.S President Jimmy Carter said after what he called long discussions with Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt that the group will try to modify the country’s peace treaty with Israel.

Carter said May 26 after the conclusion of the first round of voting in Egypt’s free presidential elections that the Muslim Brotherhood would seek to modify, but not destroy, the peace treaty signed between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat in 1979, Reuters reported.

The Carter Center helped monitor the elections.

“My opinion is that the treaty will not be modified in any unilateral way,” Carter said at a news conference in Cairo. Carter brought Sadat and Begin to Camp David in 1978, where they signed peace accords months before the peace treaty was signed at the White House.

The official first-round election results are due on Tuesday. If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, a runoff election will be held.

Preliminary results show that one of the run-off candidates, Mohamed Morsi, will come from the Muslim Brotherhood.

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