Egypt’s Brotherhood attempts to calm S. Arabia spat

Lawmakers from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood traveled to Saudi Arabia on Thursday in a bid to lower the flames of a simmering dispute that is the biggest rift in decades between the two most powerful Arab states.

The speakers of Egypt’s upper and lower houses of parliament, both senior members of the Brotherhood, joined a delegation meeting Saudi King Abdullah over the crisis triggered by Riyadh’s arrest of an Egyptian lawyer and a wave of protests that it generated. This weekend the Saudis withdrew their ambassador from Egypt, citing security concerns following the demonstrations over Ahmed el-Gizawi’s detention on April 17.