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UPDATE:

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200704/NAT20070413d.html

“Islamist Group Denies Report of Hoyer Invitation to Visit Congress”
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com Managing Editor
April 13, 2007

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “(CNSNews.com) - The Muslim Brotherhood has denied an Egyptian newspaper report saying that a visiting delegation led by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had invited members of the radical Islamist group to visit the U.S. Congress.

“These reports are totally groundless,” Muslim Brotherhood executive bureau member Mohamed Mursi said in a statement posted on the organization’s website.

Mursi said the group’s stance on dialogue with any foreign official was that “this dialogue should be held through sound diplomatic methods in the presence of a representative from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.”

The independent Egyptian daily al-Mesryoon reported Thursday that the Hoyer delegation had invited Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Mahdi Akef and several other officials to visit the U.S. next month and address lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Hoyer twice last week met representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that spawned Hamas and supports the establishment of a Muslim caliphate.

The Maryland Democrat’s office played down the encounters — at the Egyptian parliament and, later, at the U.S. ambassador’s residence — saying they were not “personal” meetings but had taken place in the context of meetings with Egyptian legislators.

Mohammed Saad el-Katatni, who heads the Brotherhood’s parliamentary bloc, was one of those who attended the two events and met with the American delegation. The Muslim Brotherhood is banned but tolerated in Egypt, and its 88 members in the 454-seat lower house of parliament call themselves “independents.”

Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Bernards on Friday denied the al-Mesryoon report, saying she had “no knowledge of any invitation to members of the Muslim Brotherhood” and that she believed the report to be incorrect.”