Americas

Americas

Clinton gives green light to Egypt military aid

24 March 2012 02:57 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday gave the green light to the military aid to Egypt for the reason of "America’s national security interests, " despite the recent rows between Washington and Cairo over the operations of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Arab country, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"Today, Secretary Clinton has certified to Congress that Egypt is meeting its obligations under its Peace Treaty with Israel," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

"The secretary has also waived legislative conditions related to Egypt’s democratic transition, on the basis of America’s national security interests, allowing for the continued flow of Foreign Military Financing to Egypt," she said.

"These decisions reflect America’s over-arching goal: to maintain our strategic partnership with an Egypt made stronger and more stable by a successful transition to democracy," Nuland noted.

Last year, the U.S. congress passed a legislation that set conditions for America’s military aid to Egypt and tied it to the country’s progress on transition to democracy, following the fall of its former president Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for 30 years. Washington gives Cairo 1.3 billion U.S. dollars in military aid annually, which is part of the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.

The United States and Egypt have been at odds over the operations of NGOs since the end of last year when Egyptian authorities searched 17 local and foreign groups’ offices over suspected illicit funding activities.

As the U.S.-based International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute were among the searched groups, Washington voiced deep concern over these moves and even threatened to cut its military aid to Egypt.

The Egyptian authorities had filed charges against dozens of NGO activists, including 19 Americans. But later on, those Americans were allowed to leave the country.

Clinton’s decision showed that Washington still wants to maintain ties with Cairo as Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel was critical to the security of the Jewish state.

The statement cited Egypt’s "significant progress toward democracy" in the last 15 months, including free and fair elections, transfer of legislative authority to the people’s assembly and setting a date for complete transition to civilians leadership.

"However, Egypt’s transition to democracy is not yet complete, and more work remains to protect universal rights and freedoms," Nuland said.

"We remain deeply concerned regarding the trials of civil society activists -- non-Egyptians and Egyptians alike -- and have raised these concerns at the highest levels, urging an end to harassment," she added.

However, Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate subcommittee on foreign aid, disagreed with the approval.

"Waiving the new conditions on democracy and human rights is regrettable, and handing over the entire 1.3 billion dollars at once to the Egyptian military compounds the mistake by dissipating our future leverage," he said in a statement on Friday.