Obama administration ends long hold on military aid to Egypt

By Washington Post

The United States will resume its paused military aid to Egypt, the White House said Tuesday, signaling the Obama administration’s desire to help a key Middle Eastern ally confront militant threats despite concerns about its repressive stance on human rights.

Following a lengthy review, the Obama administration said it would continue to request the $1.3 billion in annual military financing it has previously provided to Egypt, which has been the second-largest recipient of U.S. military funding after Israel.
But in a signal that Washington seeks to exercise tighter control over aid provided to a government it had repeatedly condemned for harsh treatment of dissidents, the United States will no longer allow Egypt to purchase military equipment on credit, and will earmark aid for specific activities related to U.S. counter-terrorism goals.

In a call with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, Obama “explained that these and other steps will help refine our military assistance relationship so that it is better positioned to address the shared challenges to U.S. and Egyptian interests in an unstable region,” the White House said in a statement.
Sissi’s government is grappling not only with insurgent violence in the country’s Sinai peninsula but with a mounting threat in neighboring Libya, where militants linked to the Islamic State executed 21 Egyptian Christians in February.

The decision will also permit Egypt to obtain a dozen F-16 fighter jets, 20 Harpoon missiles and up to 125 U.S. Abrams M1A1 tank kits, the White House said. That military equipment had been on hold since Sissi deposed elected President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

But the Obama administration will not take an additional step that would signal more broad backing for Sissi’s government. That step, a so-called “democracy certification,” has been associated with U.S. efforts to ensure that Egypt does not return to the autocratic government of its past.
“We will continue to engage with Egypt frankly and directly on its political trajectory and to raise human rights and political reform issues at the highest levels,” Bernadette Meehan, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement.