AMMAN, July 17, 2013 (AFP)
AMMAN, July 17, 2013 (AFP)
US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday said it was too early to judge yet the future course of Egypt following the ouster of Mohamed Morsi.
“Very clearly order needs to be restored, stability needs to be restored, rights need to be protected … and the country needs to be able to return to normal business,” Kerry told a press conference in Amman.
“We are concerned about political arrests and we are concerned about people being able to participate,” Kerry said.
He added it was “much too early to make pronouncements or judge where it’s going to go.”
On Monday Deputy Secretary William Burns was in Cairo, the most senior American official to visit Egypt since the July 3 coup which removed Morsi.
Burns urged Egypt’s divided factions to engage in dialogue and end violence, according to comments he made in Cairo aired on Arabic television channels.
State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell later said violence which has rocked Egypt since Morsi’s ouster made the transition “much more difficult,” but he insisted Washington was not taking sides.
Washington has refrained from saying Morsi was the victim of a coup, which would legally require a freeze on some $1.5 billion in US military and economic assistance to Cairo.
