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RICE MEETS EGYPTIAN MINISTERS AFTER URGING RELEASE OF DISSIDENT

France 24 - February 8, 2007 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Egypt to release a prominent jailed dissident, shortly before she met with the country's foreign minister. Testifying in Congress, Rice said she had repeatedly raised the case of opposition leader Ayman Nour with Egyptian officials in the past and would continue to do so. "We think that his release would be wholly appropriate," she said. Nour was the leading opposition candidate against President Hosni Mubarak in presidential elections in 2005, but is now serving a five-year prison term on charges of electoral fraud -- allegations he denies. Human rights groups have said Nour's health is failing in prison. Rice met later Wednesday Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit for talks expected to focus on US and Egyptian efforts to break the stalemate in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. In an address earlier Wednesday to the Brookings Institution think tank, Gheit defended his government's record on reform, insisting, "We are continuing to open our political process." But he also said the process needed to advance "one step at a time, with moderation" or it could "create dynamics that would help the extremists." Rice has been accused of backing away from her once outspoken support for democratic reforms in Egypt and other allied Arab states as Washington found itself increasingly in need of those governments' support over the crisis in Iraq. The top US diplomat famously angered Egyptian officials when she made an impassioned plea for greater democracy under Mubarak during a 2005 speech at Cairo University. During her most recent visit to Egypt last month, Rice made no mention of political reforms. "On your trip to Cairo University in 2005, you had spoken very, very powerfully about democracy reform, and in 2006 it doesn't seem to have been mentioned as part of the agenda," Congressman Gary Ackerman told Rice during Wednesday's hearing. "Why are we not really pushing our friends in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Pakistan?" he asked. Rice insisted that "democracy is right at the core of what we are doing in our foreign policy," and described her Cairo University address as "maybe the most important speech I've made as secretary." Rice also said that during her brief January talks with Mubarak and Gheit focussed on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, she did privately raise US concerns about the treatment of nongovernmental organizations and Nour's case.

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