CAIRO, July 14: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday reaffirmed Washington’s “strong” support for Egypt’s democratic transition, after talks with newly-elected President Mohamed Morsi.

“I have come to Cairo to reaffirm the strong support of the United States for the Egyptian people and their democratic transition,” Ms Clinton said at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr.

“We want to be a good partner and we want to support the democracy that has been achieved by the courage and sacrifice of the Egyptian people,” she said.

“Democracy is hard.... It requires dialogue and compromise and real politics. We are encouraged and we want to be helpful. But we know it is not for the United States it is for the Egyptian people to decide.”

During her visit to Egypt, the top US diplomat will also meet Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi — the country’s interim military ruler after Hosni Mubarak was ousted in an uprising last year — as well as women activists and Coptic leaders, US officials said.

Ms Clinton steps into the political maelstrom of a complex power struggle between the Islamist president and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) that ruled Egypt after Mr Mubarak was toppled.

Ms Clinton held talks with President Morsi soon after arriving in Cairo. “We are very, very keen to meet you and happy you are here,” Mr Morsi told the top US diplomat as they went into the meeting at the presidential palace.

A State Department official told reporters before the meeting that Ms Clinton would “ultimately sound a note of optimism about her view both of what Egypt can achieve and what the US-Egypt partnership can achieve as we move forward”.

She wanted to hear about “the steps that the Egyptians are planning to take... on the constitution, on the parliament and the other aspects of institutions that will ultimately result in a full transition to democratic civilian rule”, he said.—AFP