Washington approves a deal to update 43 Apache helicopters to Egypt worth 2.3 billion dollars, and confirms the continuation of pressures on Cairo in the human rights file
The US administration approved a deal to update attack helicopters to Egypt worth 2.3 billion dollars, but an official confirmed on Friday that the United States continues to exert pressure on Cairo in the field of human rights.
On Thursday, the US administration informed Congress that it had given the green light to press ahead with a deal to upgrade 43 Apache helicopters.
US State Department military deals official Rene Clarke Cooper said the deal aims to support the Egyptian campaign against Islamists in the Sinai Peninsula and to ensure coordination capabilities with the Israeli army.
The deal came despite calls from the American tourist, Ebrel Corley, who was seriously injured in the Apache helicopter targeting a group of tourists in the Western Desert in Egypt in the year 2015 in which her boyfriend was killed, to stop military deals with Egypt.
Corley says the Egyptian authorities have acknowledged that they made a mistake, but they refuse to give any compensation.
Another American citizen, Mustafa Qasim, spent his detention in January after his hunger strike.
He was arrested during his visit to Cairo in 2013 as part of a large-scale arrest campaign.
“We were very clear with our Egyptian counterparts and interlocutors about the death of Mustafa Qasim and the issue of Ebrel Corley and that settlement,” Cooper told reporters.
He said that these two issues were “not closed”, but he made it clear that the Egyptian side “is an important partner in the campaign to combat international terrorism and certainly remains a partner to us and our Israeli allies”.
Egypt is the first Arab country to sign a peace agreement with Israel in 1979 and has since become the largest recipient of US aid, especially military.
US President Donald Trump has forged close ties with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who stressed the importance of combating Islamic State and recently sent medical aid to the United States to boost efforts to contain the Corona virus.
