CAIRO, Jan 29: The Egyptian president has dismissed his government, saying that he will replace it with a new one on Saturday.
"I have asked the government to resign and tomorrow there will be a new government," Hosni Mubarak (right) said in an address to the nation late on Friday after four days of deadly protests.
The president said that change can not be achieved through chaos but through dialogue.
Saying he understood that the people of Egypt wanted him to address poverty, employment and democratic reform, he promised to press ahead with social, economic and political reforms.
"We will not backtrack on reforms. We will continue with new steps which will ensure the independence of the judiciary and its rulings, and more freedom for citizens," Mubarak said.
He said new steps will be taken "to contain unemployment, raise living standards, improve services and stand by the poor."
Reacting to the protests that have erupted in the capital and other cities, Mubarak urged calm, adding that only because of his own reforms over the years, were people able to protest.
'Not enough'
His words, however, are likely to be interpreted as an attempt to cling to power rather than take concrete steps to solve some of the more pressing problems facing many Egyptians, primarily unemployment and rapidly rising food prices.
Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Cairo, said many Egyptians calling for change would say the sacking of the government is not enough.
"Ultimately in Egypt, the power lies with the president," he said.
"On paper, you have an independent parliament and an independent judiciary but every Egyptian will tell you that at the end of the day, power is concentrated in the hands of the president.
"Very few institutions can challenge his authority so the sacking of the cabinet is not going to end the grievances of the people."
A somber looking Mubarak called anti-government protests "part of a bigger plot to shake the stability and destroy legitimacy" of the political system.
He also defended the security forces' crackdown on protesters, saying he had given them instructions that the protesters be allowed to express their views. But, he said, acts of violence and vandalism left the security forces with no choice but to react to restore order.
US: Mubarak not dictator
In an apparent change of tone, the Obama administration on Friday expressed its deep concerns about the use of violence by Egyptian police and security forces against protesters and urged Egyptian authorities to respect citizens' rights.
"Events unfolding in Egypt are of deep concern. Fundamental rights must be respected, violence avoided and open communications allowed," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley tweeted.
Crowley's remarks, however, contradicts Washington's earlier stance on Egypt's protests which were accompanied by mild expressions of support for Mubarak.
"Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he's been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with Israel. …I would not refer to him as a dictator," US Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday.
Some political analysts, however, believe that there is no change in the US stance toward Egypt and that Washington still fully supports Mubarak's regime.
"There is no ambiguity about what [the US] stance is. The Egyptian military and police are completely supported and backed by the US and by the Central Intelligence Agency," the author of The Hidden History of Zionism Ralph Schoenman told Press TV in an interview.
"It's a country selling regime that does the bidding of US and Israeli policy in the region at the expense of the very livelihood and survival of its own people," he added.
Sources: AlJazeera, Reuters and PressTV
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