Kerry arrives in post-Morsi Egypt

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Egypt on Sunday for the first high-level talks since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in July, Egyptian officials said, dpa reported.

He is expected to press for democratic reforms during talks with Interim President Adly Mansour, Defence Minister Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy, before heading to Saudi Arabia.

The visit comes one day before Morsi's trial on charges of inciting murder of opposition protesters opens in a Cairo court.

The United States withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Egypt after the military removed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president and launched a deadly crackdown on Islamist group.

Washington has conditioned renewing the aid on clear progress toward a democratic transition.

Egypt had received some 1.3 billion dollars in annual military aid from the United States since it signed a peace accord with Israel late in the 1970s.

The military says its deadly crackdown on supporters of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group is part of a war against terrorism.

Kerry visited Egypt in March and pressed Morsi to implement political and economic reforms.

Kerry will also visit Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Morocco and Poland.


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