President Barack Obama has decided to scale back assistance to Egypts government because of disappointment over the military regimes failure to move back towards democracy after taking power in July, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Egypts military government has made decisions inconsistent with inclusive democracy which sort of leads us to where we are now, a senior Obama administration official told reporters on a conference call.
The U.S. is suspending $260 million in cash aid to Egypts government and will hold delivery of certain large-scale military systems, such as F-16 aircraft, M1A1 Abrams tanks, Harpoon anti-ship missiles and Apache helicopters, officials said. They said the delayed military equipment is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
While U.S. officials said they hoped the shift on aid would send a message to Egypts military leaders to speed the countrys return to democracy, Obama administration officials also went out of their way to stress that the U.S. is not severing its ties to Cairo.
We have decided to maintain our relationship with the Egyptian government, while recalibrating our assistance to Egypt to best advance our interests, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a brief written statement which used the word continue in six consecutive sentences.
Some funding for counter-terrorism efforts, health and democracy-promotion efforts in Egypt will be preserved, officials said. In addition, the U.S. will continue to send spare parts to Egypts military and will not interrupt training efforts for Egyptian military personnel.
Egypts military took control of the government in July amidst street protests against democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi. U.S. officials did not endorse the move, but said the protests were so widespread that they demonstrated Morsi had lost support of the Egyptian public, in part due to his own moves to sideline opposition groups and other critics.
At the time, Obama said he hoped the military would quickly restore democratic rule. But he suspended a planned joint military exercise and the delivery of F-16s while awaiting the outcome of a broader review of U.S. aid.
However, officials said Wednesday that Egypts military leaders have not made the hoped-for steps towards democracy. They pointed to the failure to lift emergency decrees, ongoing restrictions on the press and to arrests of members of Morsis Muslim Brotherhood. Earlier Wednesday, an Egyptian court announced plans to put Morsi himself on trial next month for inciting murder and violence.
The U.S. is not expecting that the shift in aid will produce any immediate change in the regimes actions, an official said.
This decision underscores that the United States will not support things that run contrary to our values and its important to be clear about those things, the official added.
While Israel has reacted with concern to U.S. plans to stop some aid to Egypts government, U.S. officials stressed that American backing will continue for security in the Sinai desert and along Egypts borders with Israel and Gaza.
We didnt want to do anything to put any of that at risk, an official said.
The new moves met with a mixed reaction from lawmakers. Some, who have labeled the militarys July takeover as a coup that requires a suspension of aid under U.S. law, expressed disappointment that Obama didnt go further.
