Egypt's deputy prime minister will propose a way out of a bloody confrontation between the security forces and the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed president Mohamed Mursi when the cabinet discusses the crisis on Sunday.
But his ideas seemed to run counter to a suggestion by the prime minister to dissolve the Islamist organisation, the target of a fierce crackdown by the army-backed government last week.
The authorities declared a state of emergency and killed hundreds of people in raids on Wednesday on protest camps set up in Cairo to demand Mursi's reinstatement.
The capital's frenetic streets, unusually empty in the past few days, were returning to normal on Sunday, although the army kept several big squares closed and enforced a curfew overnight.
At night, soldiers standing beside armoured personNel carriers man checkpoints, and vigilantes inspect cars for weapons.
Banks and the stock market reopened for the first time since Wednesday's carnage, with shares rapidly falling 2.5 percent.
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"As long as we have bloodshed on the streets, it takes away any reason for foreign and regional investors to buy in Egypt," said Amer Khan, director at Shuaa Asset Management in Dubai.
The initiative by Deputy Prime Minister Ziad Bahaa el-Din, a liberal, calls for an immediate end to the state of emergency, political participation for all parties and guarantees of human rights, including the right to free assembly.
The Brotherhood has said it will keep up mass protests until Mursi, toppled by the army on July 3 after huge demonstrations against him, is freed from jail and returned to office.
Polarized Republic
It was not clear how much support Bahaa el-Din's proposal, seen by Reuters, could gain among the new leaders of a deeply polarised Arab republic experiencing the worst bout of bloodshed and internecine conflict in its six-decade history.
Blaming a defiant Brotherhood for the bloodletting, Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi has proposed banning the 85-year-old movement and effectively forcing it underground.
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"There will be no reconciliation with those whose hands have been stained with blood and who turned weapons against the state and its institutions," Beblawi told reporters on Saturday.
Bahaa el-Din stayed in office even after a leading fellow-liberal, Deputy President Mohamed ElBaradei, resigned over the violent break-up of the protest camps in Cairo on Wednesday.
His proposal does not address Mursi's fate or specifically call for an amnesty for detained leaders of the Brotherhood.