نص الحوار الاصلي لماري هارفي عن مصر كما نشره موقع الحكومة الامريكية: QUESTION: The Human Rights Watch report, to which you reacted last week – so what is Sisi now? Is he a democratic transition leader, a criminal, a counterterrorism ally of the United States? What specifically? MS. HARF: Well, as I said last week, we are deeply disturbed by the findings of the Human Rights Watch report. We have reported our own account of last year’s violence in the State Department’s Human Rights Report that we released this year – was released in February, I believe. And we’ve made very clear from this podium and from the President on down our concerns. So we have – at the same time have a strategic relationship with Egypt that is ongoing. But what that means is when we have places where we have overlapping strategic interests, like counterterrorism in the Sinai, we will work together. When we have concerns about what they’ve done, things they’ve done, we will say so publicly and clearly, and also privately. So it is a longstanding relationship, but one where, when we disagree, we are very clear about that. And this is certainly one of those cases. QUESTION: But is Sisi, to you, still leading the democratic transition? MS. HARF: He is, he is. Now, look, they have a long way to go. And there’s a reason we haven’t certified some of the assistance that is particularly in the bucket about democratic transition. So clearly we believe there is much more work that needs to be done here. But again, he was elected and is continuing on this transition, but we will say very clearly when he needs to take more steps, which we have said. QUESTION: And when you talk about long-term strategy, does that mean that you are working on the assumption that Sisi and his regime are here to stay? Or are you approaching Egypt with an open mind that it could still be subject to further tumult? MS. HARF: Well, I think we know this process is not going to be without complications. That’s what we’ve seen. And transitions like this take generations and are hard and are not without serious bumps in the road, often. So that’s – we certainly know that this – knew this was never going to be smooth and don’t expect that. What we expect is the process that’s laid out by Egypt’s constitution, that is laid out for how Egypt should be governed, is adhered to, and that the government should take additional steps to allow for dissent, to allow for people to come out in the streets and make their voices heard if they’re doing so peacefully. These are principles we think are very important, and we will continue pressing. We also continue pressing for the release of journalists and other politically motivated – arrests of political – for politically motivated reasons. Excuse me there, I tripped over that a little bit. But we will continue pressing those as well. Those are very important principles as part of this relationship. QUESTION: And when the Egyptians say that they have their own terrorism concerns inside of Egypt, do you still find the Egyptians as useful as they were under Mubarak regionally and globally, or you think they’re less useful to you now in counterterrorism? MS. HARF: Well, a few points. First, in terms of regionally, they are playing an absolutely critical role right now in these cease-fire talks. All you have to do is look at what they’re doing – we have another temporary cease-fire in place. As Matt mentioned, there’s – time is running out here, but they have played a crucial role in working to see if we can get a sustainable cease-fire in place for Gaza. That is incredibly important regionally. In terms of the terrorist threat, we know there is a very serious terrorist threat in Egypt – particularly in the Sinai, but other places as well – which has been increasingly troubling. That title can’t be used just to apply to anyone they don’t like. That can’t be applied to peaceful protestors. But we know there is a serious terrorist threat and we’re working with them on that.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 08:34:01 +0000
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