CAIRO (AA) – Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has criticized Egypt's Islamist current, accusing it of "religious vanity."
"I say to the Islamist current: be careful when dealing with the Egyptian people," al-Sisi told independent daily Al-Masry al-Youm on Tuesday, in his first interview with a local newspaper since ousting elected President Mohamed Morsi on July 3.
"You [Islamists] act as if you are right and they [the Egyptian people] are wrong; that you are believers and they are non-believers; that you will be saved and they will be doomed," he said. "This is religious vanity."
Al-Sisi ruled out the possibility of holding a popular referendum on the army-imposed roadmap under which Morsi was ousted, the constitution suspended and an unelected president appointed.
"I say to those who talk of a referendum: we are way past this," he declared. "We are implementing the will of the Egyptian people."
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