Egypt's grand imam demands 'serious dialogue'

The head of Egypt's leading Islamic authority al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb has said "immediate and serious dialogue" is the ultimate and only solution to the current political crisis in Egypt In a live TV address, he added that he wasn't informed in advance about the military operation aiming to clear the protest camps in Cairo. Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's main seat of learning, distanced itself from the crackdown on protesters loyal to ousted president Mohammed Morsi which left dozens dead. "Al-Azhar stresses to all Egyptians that it did not know about the methods used for the dispersal of the protests except through media channels," al-Tayeb added. In a similar development, the European Union, Britain and Germany also called on the Egyptian authorities to exercise restraint and on all sides to renounce violence.