CAIRO Ñ Egypt plans to take a series of steps to reduce tension with
the United States to foil congressional efforts to reduce military aid to
Cairo.
Arab diplomatic sources said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher has
directed his staff to examine a range of options to end the crisis in
relations
with Washington. The sources said Maher and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
are concerned about a snowball effect in which Congress would seek to reduce
military aid to Egypt in fiscal 2003 or 2004.
Egypt receives nearly $2 billion in U.S. aid. Of that $1.3 billion is in
military aid.
In all, Egypt has received $40 billion in economic and military aid
since 1980. In 1999, Egypt agreed to an annual five percent cut in economic
aid until 2008.
Earlier this year, Rep. Tom Lantos launched an effort to review U.S.
military aid to Egypt in an attempt to slash the annual allocation.
Congressional sources said Lantos and some of his colleagues want to reduce
U.S. military aid to Egypt by at least $100 million. They said one option
could be a reduction in both Israeli and Egyptian military aid to maintain
balance.
The directive by Maher came in wake of a White House assertion that the
Bush administration would no longer approve additional economic or military
aid to Cairo because of its imprisonment of a leading human rights activist.
The sources said Maher has ordered state-owned newspapers to downplay
the tensions with the United States. They said the foreign minister does not
want to exacerbate the crisis and plans to launch a dialogue with Washington
to resolve the tensions.
Maher was also said to have ordered Egypt to plan a media campaign to
counter Washington's charges that Cairo has been violating human rights. The
reference was to U.S. criticism of the conviction and seven-year sentence of
Egyptian-American human rights monitor Saad Eddin Ibrahim.
Human rights activists were also being pressed to disassociate
themselves from U.S. pressure on Cairo regarding Ibrahim. Several activists
said the Bush administration's linkage of aid to human rights could hurt
their cause and warned that it would cause Egyptians to feel that Washington
could influence Egyptian courts.
The diplomatic sources said Egypt is considering inviting Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon to Cairo to defuse tension with Washington. The
sources said such an invitation would highlight Egypt's support for the
peace treaty with Israel and efforts to end the Palestinian insurgency war.