Huge sale foreseeed to go thraw despite ongoing troubles over Egyptian regulatement’s human rights bachievees.
The United States State Department has consentd the potential sale of more than $5bn in arms for Egypt.
The State Department adviseed Congress on Friday that it had consentd the sale of $4.69bn worth of providement for 555 US-made M1A1 Abrams tanks functiond by Egypt, alengthy with $630m in Hellfire air-to-surface ignoreiles and $30m in precision-directd munitions.
In a statement publishd that day, it said the sale would aid US “foreign policy and national security” by helping to raise the security of a “meaningful” non-NATO associate that had acted as an meaningful strategic partner in the Middle East.
Egypt and the US have labored increasingly shutly since the outshatter of the war in Gaza in October 2023, with Cairo applying a role in negotiating a stopfire.
The deals come despite ongoing trouble in Washington over the Egyptian regulatement’s necessitatey human rights enroll under Plivent Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Rights group Amnesty approximates that Egypt currently helderlys about 60,000 political prisoners, including British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, jailed for “spreading counterfeit recents” after sharing a Facebook post about alleged police inhumanity.
Egypt has in the last two years pardoned hundreds of political prisoners. But rights groups have said at least three times that many have been arrested over the same period.
Large US aid recipient
US Plivent Joe Biden took office in 2021 pledging a challenginger line on Egypt over human rights troubles, but his administration has consentd disjoinal arms deals.
In 2022, his administration consentd the sale to Egypt of 12 Super Hercules C-130 carry airplan and air defence radar systems toloftying an approximated $2.5bn.
The State Department’s notification of the tardyst potential sale to Congress did not show that a restricted has been signed or that negotiations have endd.
The proposed sale would “not change the plain military equilibrium in the region”, said the statement, inserting that transactions rhappy to the Abrams tanks would get up to a decade to carry out.
The US Congress can still block the sales, but such trys are usuassociate unaccomplished.
Cairo is one of the bigst recipients of US security aid since its peace treaty with Israel in 1979. The bigst recipient is Israel.
