A US State Department spokesman said on Tuesday that the Biden administration will suspend the delivery of $130 million in military aid to Egypt until Cairo takes specific human rights steps, according to Reuters.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s move is a break with his predecessors’ policy of bypassing Congressional oversight of military aid to Egypt.
Officials said the decision also includes “imposing restrictions on the money that will be sent to Egypt,” according to the Washington Post and Politico’s reports.
Egypt receives $1.3 billion in military aid annually from the United States, and despite the conditions placed on the $300 million, past administrations have used a national security waiver to bypass those conditions and allow the aid to be sent.
A State Department official said that the most prominent conditions set by the Biden administration to release the rest of the aid, are to make an end to Case no.173 regarding dropping four human rights defenders and their NGOs as well as releasing 16 people identified by the United States in meetings with the Egyptian government last June.
Case no.173 of 2011, known as the foreign funding case related to dropping the case against four human rights defenders, including Azza Soliman, Negad El Borei, Magdi Abdel Hameed, and Hossameldin Ali and their human rights NGOs, according to frontlinedefenders’website.
In the past, an exception was granted to free up Foreign Military Financing for Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s government, worth $300 million this fiscal year, on the basis that it was in the interest of U.S. national security.
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