Among those attending the talks were influential Salafist clerics Sheikh Mohammed Hassan and Mohammed Abdel Salam, who just days ago addressed pro Morsi supporters at one sit in.
“The Islamists who met Sisi, while not members of the Muslim Brotherhood, have been supporting them at the Rabaa al Adawiya sit in. Hopefully, the Brotherhood will listen to what they have to say to find a way out of the crisis,” a source close to the talks said.
But Yasser Ali, a spokesman for the pro Morsi demonstrators, said the clerics had met Sisi “without having been mandated.”
Days of heated diplomatic activity in Cairo have seen visits by Burns, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and an African Union delegation.
Supporters of Morsi Egypt’s first freely elected president see his ouster by the military as a violation of democracy and insist on nothing short of reinstatement.
They called more protests on Sunday night.
“The police? I’m not frightened,” said Nadia, a young woman at the Rabaa al Adawiya sit in, where the mood was festive ahead of this week’s Eid feast marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Authorities have repeatedly urged protesters to go home, promising them that a safe exit would allow the Muslim Brotherhood to return to political life.
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