Secretary of State John Kerry offered an unexpected lift to Egypt’s military leaders on Thursday, saying they had been “restoring democracy” when they deposed the country’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/world/middleeast/egypt-warns-morsi-supporters-to-end-protests.html?ref=world&_r=0
Mr. Kerry said, “The military did not take over, to the best of our judgment — so far.”
Mr. Kerry’s blunt comments represented the strongest endorsement yet by the United States of the military intervention, which the Obama administration has refused to call a coup.
Using that term would require the United States to suspend its annual $1.5 billion aid package, a move that American officials assert would further destabilize Egypt. Instead, the administration has found a way to avoid the question altogether, deciding last week that it was not legally required to determine whether the military had engineered a coup or not.
On Thursday, tens of thousands of Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters continued their sit-ins at two Cairo squares, defying intensifying warnings from the Egyptian authorities to abandon the protests or face their dispersal by force.
The protesters have vowed to remain in the squares until Mr. Morsi is released from military detention and restored as president. On Wednesday, Egypt’s military-backed government ordered the police to break up the protests, saying they posed a threat to “national security.”
Mr. Morsi’s supporters said that the sit-ins were peaceful and would continue, and that the alliance “places full responsibility on the coup leaders for any acts of violence or killings.”
“Now, as you know, these situations can be very confusing and very difficult,” Mr. Kerry continued.
