Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in Congress, John Kerry, visited the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, raising controversy surrounding relations between Muslim Brotherhood and U.S. after the January 25 Revolution. Kerry did not visit any political parties but the FJP during his visit to Egypt. Many considered this visit as an American reading to the new political map in Egypt. This is the third visit by an American official to the FJP since the revolution. Spokesman of the MB, Mahmoud Ghozlan, said that they welcome any cooperation with the U.S. and all countries of the world. “We respect any cooperation, except any interference in the interior political affairs in Egypt, as well as not imposing certain policies on us,” he said. He assured they would not accept any conditional support from the U.S. or any other country. Ghozlan said relations between MB and U.S. during the former regime were not existent, but developed recently. He pointed their first demand from America was, and will always be, non-alignment with Israel. Author Salah Eissa said the U.S. is reading into voting trends in the first round of the parliamentary elections, which resulted in the increase of the popularity of MB and Islamic movements in general. He said that Kerry's visit came after the FJP gained the majority of votes during the first round of the parliamentary elections, which means they may form the government. Eissa pointed out that MB have sought for years ago to calm Arab and U.S. fears that if they reached power there would be no clash with the west.
