Egyptians call aid cuts misguided

But leader silent on U.S. decision as Kushner visits Cairo

In this photo provided by Egypt's state news agency, MENA, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, right, poses for a photo with White House adviser Jared Kushner, in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017. El-Sissi and Egypt's foreign minister have met with Kushner just hours after the Trump administration cut or delayed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Cairo over human rights concerns. Kushner, who is also President Donald Trump's son-in-law, was in Cairo as part of a Middle East tour aimed at exploring ways to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which last collapsed in 2014. (MENA via AP)
In this photo provided by Egypt's state news agency, MENA, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, right, poses for a photo with White House adviser Jared Kushner, in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017. El-Sissi and Egypt's foreign minister have met with Kushner just hours after the Trump administration cut or delayed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Cairo over human rights concerns. Kushner, who is also President Donald Trump's son-in-law, was in Cairo as part of a Middle East tour aimed at exploring ways to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which last collapsed in 2014. (MENA via AP)

CAIRO -- Egypt's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that Cairo regrets the decision by President Donald Trump's administration to cut or delay nearly $300 million in military and economic aid over human-rights concerns.

The day after the U.S.' announcement, Trump's Middle East envoy, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, arrived in Egypt as part of a regional tour to try to revive Arab-Israeli peace talks. He met with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and later conferred with Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry before leaving for Israel.

In a statement, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry called the U.S.' decision a "misjudgment of the nature of the strategic relations that have bound the two countries for decades." The move, it said, "reflects a lack of careful understanding of the importance of supporting the stability and success of Egypt, as well as the size and nature of the security and economic challenges faced by the Egyptian people."

It warned that the cuts may have "negative consequences for the realization of common U.S.-Egyptian interests." It did not elaborate.

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However, an Egyptian presidential statement on Kushner's meeting with el-Sissi made no mention of the aid cuts and delays, which totaled $290.7 million. El-Sissi, a general-turned-president who has repeatedly stated his admiration for Trump, showed none of the frustration expressed by the Foreign Ministry as he smiled while posing for a ceremonial photo with Kushner in the Egyptian leader's Cairo palace.

El-Sissi spoke to Kushner and his delegation about "Egypt's keenness to continue to work on strengthening the multi-faceted relations that bind the two countries in various fields," the statement said.

Of the $290.7 million, $195 million was military aid. The State Department said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was not able to certify that Egypt had met the human-rights criteria set by Congress in order to receive it. But because Tillerson signed a so-called national interest waiver, those funds will remain available to Egypt as long as it makes human-rights improvements. Had Tillerson not signed the waiver, the money would have been returned to the Treasury by Sept. 30 -- the end of the current fiscal year.

The remainder -- $95.7 million in economic and military assistance -- was cut from the Egypt account. Most of it had been held in escrow since 2014 as a result of new aid conditions Congress set after el-Sissi's 2013 ouster of Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president. Of that money, $65.7 million was foreign military financing and $30 million was so-called economic support funds, basically a cash payment to the government. Those funds will now go instead to "key security partners, without undermining Egypt's security," according to the State Department.

"We do this with other countries as well where we say, 'Hey look, here's something we're going to hold back on and we can give this to you if we start to see movement in the right direction,"' State Department spokesman Heather Nauert said at a briefing Wednesday.

In announcing the changes, the Trump administration cited Egypt's poor human-rights record and its crackdown on civic and other nongovernmental groups.

Rights lawyer Gamal Eid said U.S. demands for Egypt to improve its rights record were "legitimate" given what he said was a surge in violations.

"The government must now convince its American friends that what it's doing in the field of human rights serves democracy and stability," Eid said. "It's in a bind, and anything it does now will be seen as a means to secure U.S. aid."

Egypt is among the top recipients of U.S. military and economic assistance, receiving about $1.5 billion annually. The $1.3 billion in military aid and $250 million in economic aid is linked to Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with Israel and underpins a U.S.-Egyptian security relationship that is now mostly aimed at fighting terrorism.

As defense minister, el-Sissi led the military's 2013 ouster of Morsi, an Islamist whose year in office proved divisive. El-Sissi won a presidential election a year later, and he has overseen a crackdown on civil society, particularly rights and pro-democracy groups. Those groups were instrumental in the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 but are now presented by the media as part of a foreign conspiracy against Egypt.

As part of the crackdown, authorities have detained tens of thousands of people, most of them Islamist supporters of Morsi, but a number of prominent liberal and secular activists also have been jailed. Critics say the government is trampling on the country's 2014 constitution.

Egypt maintains that reviving an ailing economy, fighting Islamic militants and creating jobs are its top priorities.

Information for this article was contributed by Bradley Klapper and Menna Zaki of The Associated Press and by Tarek El-Tablawy and Nick Wadhams of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 08/24/2017

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