CAIRO, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- The United States should repair its image in the Middle East to play a more constructive role in the region, the Muslim Brotherhood's leader said from Cairo.
U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson met in Cairo with Muslim Brotherhood Chairman Mohamed Badie and other senior leaders in the Islamic movement.
Badie said past U.S. administrations earned a bad reputation in the region by supporting Arab dictators, such as deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"We want to see actions, not words, for the U.S. to recover its credibility with the Arab and Muslim peoples, in particular with regard to Palestine -- the top issue for Arabs and Muslims," he said in a statement published by the Muslim Brotherhood's official Web site.
Patterson, the Muslim Brotherhood statement stated, said Washington was taking a lessons-learned approach in the region as it emerges from the Arab Spring.
The Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm in Egypt, is dominating the post-revolutionary political landscape.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who was in the country to observe parliamentary elections, noted in a read out of his visit that he was assured by ruling military authorities that political reform was under way in Egypt.
"I was assured by U.S. State Department officials before leaving home that this victory of Islamists would be accepted and that meetings with them had already begun," he said.
