Clinton, Morsi hold key talks

Meets generals after urging transition

EGYPT: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks Sunday with Egypt’s top military leaders, just hours after calling for them to help smooth the country’s full transition to democracy.

The top US diplomat arrived in Egypt amid a complex power struggle being played out between the newly-elected Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

A day after her first meeting with Morsi, Clinton met with Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi -- the country’s interim military ruler after president Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year ending three decades in power. AFP

EGYPT: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday held talks with new President Mohamed Morsi soon after arriving in Cairo at the start of a visit aimed at lending US support to Egypt’s transition to democracy.

“We are very, very keen to meet you and happy you are here,” Morsi told Clinton as they went into the meeting at the presidential palace in Cairo’s upmarket Heliopolis suburb.

During the two-day visit, the top US diplomat will also meet Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi -- the country’s interim military ruler after Hosni Mubarak was ousted in an uprising last year -- as well as women activists and Coptic leaders, US officials said. Clinton will “ultimately sound a note of optimism about her view both of what Egypt can achieve and what the US-Egypt partnership can achieve as we move forward,” a State Department official told reporters ahead of the meeting.

She wants to hear about “the steps that the Egyptians are planning to take... on the constitution, on the parliament and the other aspects of institutions that will ultimately result in a full transition to democratic civilian rule,” the official said.

“These are questions that only the Egyptians can answer. She’s not coming with prescriptions, or with a specific set of proposals but rather is going to seek to understand better how they intend to proceed,” the official said.

Last week, Morsi ordered parliament to convene, defying a military decision to disband the house after the country’s top court ruled it invalid.

AFP