WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has announced that it is cancelling $130mn in military aid to Egypt over human rights concerns, just days after the United States approved a massive $2.5bn arms sale to the country.
The State Department said on Friday that Egypt had not met the conditions to receive the $130mn in foreign military financing that has been on hold since September. It said the money would be shifted to other programs but did not elaborate.
In announcing the cancellation, the department made no mention of the $2.5bn sale of military transport planes and radar systems that it had approved on Tuesday; the announcement for that deal had made no mention of the frozen $130mn.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken in September approved the release of $300mn in foreign military financing to Egypt but withheld another $130mn unless the government addressed “specific human-rights related conditions” by the end of January.
“The deadline for meeting those conditions will soon pass,” the department said.
Asked about the apparent inconsistency, U.S. officials have said the military aid and the arms sale are unrelated.
They say Egypt will shoulder the cost of the $2.2bn purchase of the 12 Super Hercules C-130 transport aircraft together with the radar systems worth an estimated $355mn.
Congressional Democrats who had urged Blinken not to approve the $130mn aid were pleased with Friday’s decision but did not address the arms sale that dwarfs the amount of the withheld assistance.
On Tuesday, the State Department announced the $2.5bn arms sale, saying it would “support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a major non-NATO ally country that continues to be an important strategic partner in the Middle East.”
Egypt’s government has in recent years waged a wide-scale crackdown on dissent, jailing thousands of people and activists who were involved in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that toppled the country’s longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak.