“Dissolving the party or the group is not the solution and it is wrong to make decisions in turbulent situations,” Egypt’s interim Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi said in a statement late on Tuesday.

“It is better for us to monitor parties and groups in the framework of political action without dissolving them or having them act in secret,” the statement added.

On August 17, el-Beblawi said that the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, should be dissolved, and ordered the Ministry of Social Solidarity to study the legality of the dissolution of the group.

Egypt has been rocked by a fresh wave of political chaos after the military overthrew the country's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, on July 3.

Egyptian security guards have arrested hundreds of Morsi's supporters including top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in recent days as the military-backed government seeks to end weeks of protests and to stamp its authority on the deeply polarized North African nation.

Nearly 1,000 people were killed in a week of violence between Morsi fans and security forces after police attacked their protest camps in a deadly operation on August 14.

The massacre sparked international condemnation and prompted world bodies to call for an independent investigation into the violence.

NTJ/HH