Washington--Nicole Chapman, the US State Department official responsible for Egypt and the Middle East, said her country would not support Mohamed ElBaradei if he decided to run in Egyptian presidential elections slated for next year. Chapman told reporters that the US was not concerned with specific personalities but rather supported reform and free elections, whether in Egyptian parliamentary elections this year or next year's presidential race. "The next Egyptian president will be chosen by the people," she asserted. In answer to a question as to whether the US was interfering in Egypt's internal affairs on behalf of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority, Chapman said, "What happens to the Copts is intimidating." She added that those guilty of attacking Copts in Egypt--as happened in Naga Hammadi in January--should face the full brunt of the country's penal code. She went on to say that, even if the Egyptian government considered the Naga Hammadi incident an "individual act" rather than an example of rising anti-Christian sentiment, the perpetrators should nevertheless face punishment so as to deter such attacks from recurring in the future. Chapman also announced that the US State Department had informed Egyptian officials of its concern over the arrest of local bloggers, which represents a violation of the latter's human rights. On US financial aid to Egypt, Chapman said: "This will continue, in addition to military aid in the amount of US$1.3 billion." She went on to note that economic aid should be directed towards educational and human resource development, after having largely been allocated to infrastructure development for the past three decades. Chapman concluded by noting that economic reform was "progressing well" in Egypt, according to recent World Bank reports. "As for political reform, the Obama administration has made it clear that it supports democratization and wider participation by the people in political life," she said. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
