Kerry makes first visit to Egypt since ouster of Morsi by military

Jason Reed / AP

Secretary of State John Kerry offers cupcakes to members of the traveling press between Washington and the Middle East, Saturday.

By Alastair Jamieson, Staff writer, NBC News

Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Cairo on Sunday – the highest-level American to visit Egypt since the ouster of elected president, Mohammed Morsi.

Kerry is expected to hold a number of meetings with key figures including Egypt's military chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi – who seized power in the July 3 overthrow – and the interim president, Adly Mansour.

It comes on the on the eve of Monday's scheduled start of Morsi's trial on charges of inciting murder.

After Egypt, Kerry will visit Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria and Morocco.

Washington has already urged Egypt’s interim regime to move towards a democratic constitution and free parliamentary and presidential elections, and that call is expected to be repeated on this visit.

The Associated Press reported that there was unprecedented security for a secretary of state's travel to Egypt, for decades one of the closest U.S. allies in the Arab world – a situation that highlighted the deep rifts between Washington and Cairo.

Kerry last was in Egypt in March, when he urged Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-backed government to enact sweeping economic reforms and govern in a more inclusive manner. Those calls went unheeded. Simmering public unhappiness with his rule boiled over when the powerful Egyptian military deposed Morsi.

The Obama administration was caught in a bind over whether to condemn the ouster as a coup and cut the annual $1.3 billion in U.S. military assistance that such a determination would legally require.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said on Saturday that Egypt would look beyond the U.S. to meet its security needs and warned Washington that it could no longer ignore popular demands in a changed Arab world, according to Reuters.

Fahmy said the U.S. must take a long-term view of its relations with Egypt and understand that in the wake of the Arab Spring, "it would have to deal now with the Arab peoples, not only with Arab governments".

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Sun Nov 3, 2013 4:39 AM EST