Report: Rift Between Kerry, Rice over White House Egypt Policy

Report: Rift Between Kerry, Rice over White House Egypt Policy

Before Secretary of State John Kerry made his most recent stop in Egypt, he was told to “make statements in public and private” drawing attention to deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi. Instead, Kerry decided to praise what he sees as Egypt’s current “path to democracy.”

Speaking from Cairo on November 3rd, Kerry said:

The roadmap [to democracy] is being carried out to the best of our perception. There are questions we have here or there about one thing or another, but Foreign Minister Fahmy has reemphasized to me again and again that they have every intent and they are determined to fulfill that particular decision and that track.

According to The Daily Beast, this is the outworking of a “rift” between Kerry and National Security Advisor Susan Rice that has been “simmering behind the scenes for months.”

An unnamed administration official said: “John Kerry doesn’t agree with Susan Rice on big portions of our Egypt policy, and he made a deliberate and conscious decision not to mention Morsi in his Cairo meetings.” The official added: “Susan Rice wasn’t happy about it.” 

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.

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