The United States supports Egypt’s transition to democracy but Egyptians themselves should decide on their future, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday after her first meeting with the country’s new president Mohammed Morsi.
“We are encouraged and we want to be helpful, but we know that it is not for the United States to decide," Clinton told reporters after the meeting. "It is for the Egyptian people to decide, and we will continue to support the Egyptian people making these decisions in the best way that we can."
Clinton, who arrived in Egypt earlier on Saturday, also said that she advised the new president to protect the rights of women and religious minorities and to achieve domestic security and stability by means of compromise and agreements between the branches of power.
Morsi, who is currently in the middle of a showdown with the generals from Supreme Military Council, which ruled the country after President Hosni Mubarak's ouster. The generals stripped Morsi of many of his powers before his inauguration on June 30.
The Military Council dissolved the Islamist-dominated parliament in May, following the Constitutional Court’s decision, a day before the second round of the presidential elections which secured a victory for Islamist Morsi.
Clinton also promised economic support for democratic processes in Egypt and reminded the new leadership of the necessity to observe international agreements, including the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
On Sunday, Clinton will attend the opening ceremony of the U.S. consulate in Alexandria and then head to Israel.
