Danish premier calls on Egypt's Mubarak to resign: "Mubarak is history, Mubarak must step down"

[Turborama]

Source: AP Via Washington Post

BRUSSELS -- Denmark's prime minister became the first European Union leader to publicly urge embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down, just hours after Mubarak vowed to remain in power despite pro-democracy protests.

"Mubarak is history, Mubarak must step down," Lars Loekke Rasmussen said Friday in Copenhagen.

"Mubarak made a huge blunder yesterday," he said, referring to the Egyptian leader's speech late Thursday in which he announced plans to transfer some powers to Vice President Omar Suleiman and promised presidential elections later this year.

It was not immediately clear whether Loekke Rasmussen's comments were a sign of a shift in EU policy toward the upheaval in Egypt. In the past two weeks, the 27-nation union has closely tracked the Obama administration's approach of appealing to Mubarak to implement fundamental changes demanded by the demonstrators, but without calling on him to resign.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/11/AR2011021101739.html

[Astraea]

1. I know this is contradictory to my usual stance of non-interference

in foreign affairs... but I wish our leaders had the will to make statements like this.