Cairo: Three senior Egyptian officials are holding top-level talks in the United States as the two allies are showing signs of rapprochement after months of strains caused by the army’s overthrow of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.
Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy on Thursday left for Washington to meet his US counterpart John Kerry to discuss bilateral ties and the regional situation, a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said.
The visit comes two days after Washington decided to deliver 10 Apache helicopters to Egypt, signalling partial resumption of military aid to the Arab country.
In October, Washington withheld part of its annual military aid in a sign of displeasure with the generals’ ouster of Mursi, Egypt’s first freely elected president. The suspension of delivery of military hardware to Egypt at the time angered Egyptians, who accused the US of siding with Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood. Washington has stopped short of labelling Mursi’s toppling a coup, a step that would have prompted a halt to all assistance under the US law.
Egypt has been receiving $1.3 billion in annual military assistance from the US since Cairo signed a peace treaty with the Israeli regime in 1979.
During his visit to the US, the first since Mursi’s ouster in July last year, Fahmy is also to meet leading members of the Congress and address a global forum in San Francisco.
Mohammad Al Tohamy, the chief of Egypt’s intelligence service, visited Washington earlier in the week and reportedly played a role in coaxing Washington into delivering the Apaches. The US said the helicopters are aimed at supporting Egypt’s anti-terrorism campaign against Islamist militants in volatile Sinai on the border with Israel.
Presidential advisor Mustafa Hijazi is also in the US to give a series of lectures in Washington and New York on Egypt’s implementation of a post-Mursi roadmap announced by the military to achieve democratic transformation in the country.
Egyptian media on Thursday hailed the US dispatch of helicopters.
The semi-official newspaper Al Ahram called it an “American retreat”, while the independent newspaper Al Masry Al Youm declared in a front-page comment: “Washington woos Cairo.”
“The US administration’s decision had been put on hold for some time until the decision-maker at the White House got convinced that Egypt’s roadmap is going well as scheduled,” said Ebrahim Ezzat, a political analyst in Al Ahram. The cited formula provides for constitutional amendments, already adopted in January, presidential elections scheduled for late May and parliamentary polls expected later this year.
