CAIRO: Aid from Arab states will carry Egypt through its transition period, and it does not need to restart negotiations with the IMF now, the man named planning minister in the interim government said on Monday.

Ashraf Al-Arabi, a US-educated economist who served in the same post under deposed President Muhammad Mursi until May, joins a government led by liberal economist Hazem Al-Beblawi. Beblawi has named economists to several senior posts so far.

“The time is not appropriate to begin new negotiations with the IMF,” Arabi told reporters, announcing that he had accepted the post of minister of planning. “Arab aid will enable Egypt to get through the transitional stage in a good way.”

Meanwhile, a senior US official was in Cairo Monday to press for a return to elected government following Mursi’s overthrow, as the Brotherhood leader’s supporters and opponents readied rival rallies.

Under Secretary of State Bill Burns, the first senior US official to visit since the July 3 overthrow of Egypt’s first freely elected president, flew in as the military-installed caretaker government tightened the screws on Mursi’s backers, freezing the assets of 14 top Brotherhood leaders.

Egypt’s new leaders are pushing ahead with a transition plan for an interim government and fresh elections, but Brotherhood defiantly insists on his reinstatement.

In the Sinai Peninsula, three factory workers were killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack, medics said, in the latest in a spate of deadly attacks since Mursi’s overthrow to hit the sensitive and increasingly lawless region bordering Israel.

In his talks with interim military and civilian leaders, Burns was to push for “an end to all violence and a transition leading to an inclusive, democratically elected civilian government,” the State Department said.

International concern is mounting over the continued detention of Mursi, who has been in custody since hours after the July 3 coup and was quizzed by prosecutors on Sunday over complaints of alleged criminal offenses.

Washington has still not decided whether he was the victim of a coup, which would legally require a freeze on some $1.5 billion in desperately needed US military and economic assistance to Cairo.

Elsewhere, militants killed as many as three people and wounded 17 Monday in an attack on a bus carrying workers in the North Sinai town of Al-Arish, security and medical sources said.

"The bus was attacked with a rocket-propelled grenade near Al-Arish Airport. Three people died and 17 were injured in the attack," a security official said.

Also on Monday, an NGO said Egypt's Christians have been targeted in a wave of attacks since the ouster of Mursi, and the state is failing to protect them. Sectarian violence has killed four Coptic Christians in Luxor Governorate in recent days.