Egypt’s Leaders Signal Commitment to Civilian Rule

The prime minister of Britain, David Cameron, held talks here with the leaders, becoming the highest-ranking foreign official to visit Egypt since the longtime president, Hosni Mubarak, was ousted after 18 days of widespread protests.

At the same time, the country’s top prosecutor, Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, said he would request that the Foreign Ministry ask governments to freeze any assets of Mr. Mubarak, his family and a handful of top associates. The Associated Press, citing unnamed security officials, said Mr. Mubarak’s local assets were frozen as soon as his government fell.

Last week, the Swiss government, acting on its own, froze tens of millions of dollars belonging to Mr. Mubarak, his family or top associates. The fact that the caretaker Egyptian government had not requested the move prompted opposition members to express fears that it was shielding Mr. Mubarak, a former Air Force chief, and his relatives.

As the financial noose tightened around the Mubarak family, Mr. Cameron met with the country’s de facto leader, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and Ahmed Shafiq, the prime minister who heads the caretaker government.

He declined, however, to speak with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic group that was banned by the former government but is playing an active role in the new politics of Egypt. A Brotherhood representative called his decision to exclude the group “astonishing.”

In remarks to reporters, Mr. Cameron said he wanted to underscore that the Egyptian uprising was “not about extremists on the streets.”

“This is people who want to have the sort of basic freedoms that we take for granted,” he said.

William J. Burns, the American under secretary of state for political affairs, also landed in Cairo to meet with government officials and civilian representatives. In remarks delivered at the Arab League, he said the United States would seek to encourage, not dictate, a transition to a fully civilian government.

“Americans deeply respected and admired what Egypt has already achieved, but we know that the road ahead is not going to be easy,” Mr. Burns said.

While the military remains firmly in control, the caretaker government has begun taking steps toward a more inclusive political world, appointing an opposition member for the first time to a ministry post: Mounir Abdel Nour, the secretary general of the Wafd Party, one of Egypt’s oldest political parties, was named the tourism minister for the interim government on Sunday. In an interview, Mr. Nour said he was hopeful that tourism, now at a fraction of its normal level, would soon get back on track.

Indeed, the Egyptian Museum, the storehouse of ancient treasures along the central square where the revolution began, reopened for the few tourists in town. “The international sympathy, admiration and respect for Egypt that we saw in the international press after Jan. 25 makes me very optimistic,” Mr. Nour said.

The heads of four other ministries were also replaced, and the government announced it would not appoint a minister of information, in an apparent acknowledgment that old forms of media control by the government were increasingly becoming an anachronism.

The new culture minister, Mohamed El Sawy, is the director of a popular culture center in Cairo.

In another sign that the government was playing to the nation’s revolutionary spirit, the prime minister announced that the protesters who died during the uprising would have the streets where they lived officially named for them, according to Al Masry Al Youm, an independent newspaper.

In Alexandria, legal officials arrested three police officers who were accused of shooting at demonstrators during protests on Jan. 28, news services reported.

Some opposition leaders pressed for more changes. In meetings with foreign diplomats on Monday, several youth leaders said they opposed the continuation of the Egyptian cabinet after Mr. Mubarak’s ouster. The leaders of the major ministries — interior, justice and foreign affairs — as well as the prime minister himself, were put in place by Mr. Mubarak before his fall.

As sporadic demonstrations continued in Cairo, including several in solidarity with revolutionary movements in Libya and elsewhere in the region, a coalition of youth groups called online for a large return rally on Tuesday in Tahrir Square, the center of the revolution, and said they hoped a million people would attend.

The group, known as the Coalition of January 25 Youth, said in a statement on Facebook that it was calling people to the streets “due to the procrastination of Supreme Military Council in responding to the legitimate demands of the Egyptian people and the continuation of all the figures of the former Egyptian regime, in their ministerial posts.”