U.S. Balancing Egypt Security Interests Against Aid Law
By Nicole Gaouette and Margaret Talev - Jul 8, 2013
The Obama administration is seeking to reconcile national-security interests in Egypt against a law that requires the U.S. to end aid to countries where governments have been toppled by military coups.
As Republican and Democratic lawmakers called on the administration to obey that law, White House spokesman Jay Carney said yesterday the U.S. won’t rush a decision about whether the Egyptian military’s ouster of President Mohamed Mursi constituted a coup.
“I would say that we are going to take the time necessary to review what has taken place,” Carney said. “This is a complex situation, and it is not in our interests to move unnecessarily quickly in making a determination like that because we need to be mindful of our objective here -- which is to assist the Egyptian people in their transition to democracy and to remain faithful to our national security interests.”
At the State Department, spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said that providing aid “doesn’t mean we have supported, even prior to this, every action taken by the government of Egypt, but there are security interests in the region, there are security interests for the United States.”
Egypt has been a linchpin of U.S. security policy in the Middle East, offering American submarines and military vessels expedited passage through the Suez Canal, and honoring a peace agreement with Israel since 1979. Of the $1.55 billion in U.S. aid President Barack Obama allocated for Egypt in his fiscal 2014 budget request, $1.3 billion goes to the military.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-09/u-s-balancing-egypt-security-interests-against-aid-law.html
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