Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — U.S. military aid to Egypt has nearly depleted.

A leading U.S. analyst said the $1.3 billion in American military aid to Egypt was being depleted in the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. David Schenker, a director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, urged the administration of President Barack Obama to release hundreds of millions of dollars in counter-insurgency funds for Cairo.

“Egypt has been steadily drawing down those funds to the point where both the interest-bearing and management-reserve accounts at the Federal Reserve will likely be exhausted in the coming weeks,” Schenker said.

In April 2014, the administration deposited $572 million in U.S. military aid to Egypt. This marked about half of the annual $1.3 billion allocated to Cairo since 1981, held up since the military coup of then-Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

“To transfer the remaining $650 million in committed FY 2014 assistance, Secretary [John] Kerry will have to either certify that Egypt is ‘governing democratically’ or invoke the security waiver, ostensibly by allocating the assistance to Sinai counter-terror efforts,” Schenker said in a report on Jan. 14.

So far, Egypt has not received U.S. military aid for fiscal 2015, which began last October. Schenker said the regime of Egyptian President Abdul Fatah Sisi has not met U.S. requirements to introduce democratic reforms and release political prisoners.

Since 2011, Washington has released U.S. military aid to Egypt in tranches. Schenker said he expected the administration to issue a waiver, which would be followed by briefings to Congress.

“Washington is all but certain to resume its military financing to Egypt at some point, but there is little to be gained and potentially much to be lost by waiting for Cairo’s Federal Reserve accounts to zero out in the meantime,” the report said.

  Obama urged to release U.S. counter-insurgency funds to Egypt, WorldTribune.com