NNA - EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has said that she regretted not having been able to meet Egypt's ousted president Mohamed Morsi on a visit to Cairo.



She called for his immediate release on Wednesday from the custody he has been kept in since just hours after the military toppled him on July 3.



"I believe he should be released. I was assured he is well. I would have liked to see him," Ashton told reporters.



A senior figure in ousted President Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood met with Ashton and said Brussels had offered no proposal that could resolve Egypt's political crisis.



Ashton held a 45-minute meeting with Amr Darrag and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, as well as Morsi's prime minister, Hisham Kandil.



Asked whether he was disappointed that the EU was not supporting the Brotherhood, Darrag said: "We are not expecting support from anybody. We are relying only on ourselves."



Meanwhile, the interim cabinet is charged with salvaging an economy wrecked by two and a half years of turmoil. For that, it has been given a lifeline of $12bn in aid from rich Gulf Arab states


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