Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi has fired the country’s finance and interior ministers in a partial cabinet reshuffle, ahead of fresh talks with the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8-billion loan

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi has fired the country’s finance and interior ministers in a partial cabinet reshuffle, ahead of fresh talks with the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8-billion loan on Monday.

Egyptian sources revealed that General Mohamed Ibrahim will replace former Interior Minister Ahmed Gamal El-Din and Al-Mursi Al-Sayed Hegazy will take the Finance Ministry job from Mumtaz al-Saaed, Reuters reported.

The North African country’s economy nosedived after the revolution that toppled former dictator Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

The Egyptian president recently came under fire from leftist groups and young revolutionaries for requesting a loan worth USD 4.8 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They say such a loan could worsen the situation for Egyptian.

Earlier in the day, the IMF said it would dispatch its Middle East and Central Asia director on Monday to discuss the USD 4.8 billion loan and "possible IMF support for Egypt" with Egyptian officials. The trip by Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia department, comes at the invitation of Egyptian authorities, the Washington-based lender said on Saturday.

Mursi has downplayed the economic crisis in the country saying, "General indicators for the social and economic situation have shown some noticeable progress.”

Mursi in 2010: Zionists “Blood Suckers”

This also comes as Egyptian media have circulated a video showing Mursi making harsh remarks against the Israeli regime in 2010, calling the Zionists “blood suckers” and “warmongers.”

In a televised interview with Lebanon’s Al-Quds TV in 2010, Mursi, who was the Muslim Brotherhood’s spokesman at the time, said that peace talks with the Zionist regime were a “waste of time,” considering “resistance” as the only way to liberate the land of Palestine.

The new Egyptian President also claimed that the Palestinian Authority was “created by the Zionist and American enemies,” in order to oppose the “will of the Palestinian people and its interests.”

"No reasonable person can expect progress on this track. Either [you accept] the Zionists and everything they want, or else there is war. This is what the occupiers of the land of Palestine know - these blood suckers who attack the Palestinians, these warmongers, these descendants of apes and pigs,” he said about two years ago.

He then called for “all forms of resistance” against “criminal Zionists” in the land of Palestine, such as military, political and economic resistance. He further asked the Muslim world to support resistance fighters and “besiege the Zionists wherever they are."

"We want a country for the Palestinians on the entire land of Palestine on the basis of (Palestinian) citizenship. All the talk about a two-state solution and about peace is nothing but an illusion which the Arabs have been chasing for a long time now."