RIYADH/ CAIRO: The Kingdom on Saturday welcomed the “peaceful transition of power” in Egypt, an official quoted by the official SPA news agency said. The Kingdom “welcomes the peaceful transition of power” and hopes “the efforts of Egypt's armed forces will bring peace and stability,” he said, a day after president Hosni Mubarak's ouster. Riyadh will support efforts to forge a “unity government that would achieve the hopes and aspirations of the brotherly Egyptian people towards security, stability and economic prosperity”. The official added that it hopes Egypt “will continue to play its historic Arab, Islamic and international role.”Egypt army commits to civilian rule Egypt's new military rulers vowed to pave the way for a democratically elected civilian government and to abide by all international treaties in the wake of Hosni Mubarak's overthrow. In a televised statement entitled “Communique Number 4,” the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces also said that the current government would remain in place temporarily until a new one could be sworn in after a “peaceful transition”. The council said it would “pave the way for an elected civil authority to build a free democratic state,” although it set no official timetable. It went on to say it would “remain committed to all its regional and international treaties,” implicitly confirming that Egypt's landmark 1979 peace treaty with Israel would remain intact. Egypt's chief prosecutor Saturday banned sacked prime minister Ahmed Nazif from leaving the country, state news agency MENA reported. The prosecutor also banned the widely despised former interior minister Habib Al-Adly from traveling and froze his assets, MENA said. Meanwhile, Egypt's Information Minister Anas Ahmad Nabih tendered his resignation from the government and it has been accepted, state television reported. Pro-democracy activists in Cairo's Tahrir Square vowed Saturday to stay there until the Higher Military Council now running Egypt after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak accepts their agenda for democratic reform.
