Clinton was due to travel then to Alexandria for a flag raising ceremony at a reopened U.S. Consulat

CAIRO (Reuters) US Secretary of State Hillary california hotel Clinton discussed Egypt s turbulent democratic transition with the country s top general on Sunday as the military wrestles for influence with a newly elected president.
The low-key, hour-long meeting with Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi california hotel came a day after she met Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, whose powers were clipped by the military days before he took office following the country s first free leadership vote.
Mursi fired back by recalling the Islamist-dominated parliament that the army leadership had disbanded after a court declared it void, deepening the stand-off before the new leader even had time to form a government.
The result has been acute political uncertainty as the various power centres try to find a way to get along in a country that still has no permanent constitution, parliament or government more than a year after the downfall of Hosni Mubarak.
Mursi is the first Egyptian president not to hail from the military since 1952. The generals have said many times they had no desire to remain in day-to-day government and would limit their role to one of national security.
california hotel What that means in practice will be determined by the working relationship Mursi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood are trying california hotel to forge with an old political establishment that still holds sway over much of government.
It will also be decided by a new constitution setting out Mursi s powers. The document has been caught up in months of wrangling and the military has given itself an effective veto over the final draft.
The meeting was lower profile than her discussions with Mursi, in line with protocol california hotel for such visits Tantawi is no longer california hotel Egypt s effective head of state. And the State Department was very cautious on what was discussed during the encounter.
The United States, which provides its long-standing ally with $1.3 billion in military aid per year, making it one of Egypt s biggest donors, has worked hard not to take sides in the latest political stand-off.
The armed forces and the army council respects legislative and executive authorities, he said in a speech to troops in the city of Ismailia. The armed forces would not allow anyone california hotel to discourage it from its role in protecting Egypt and its people.
Ties between Cairo and Washington were strained this year when Egyptian judicial police raided the offices of several U.S.-backed non-governmental organisations on suspicion of illegal foreign funding and put several Americans on trial as a result.
Making her first visit to Egypt since Mursi s inauguration, Clinton appeared to recognise there were limits to what, if anything, Washington california hotel can do to influence events in Cairo and stressed that it was up to Egyptians to chart their future.
They discussed the political transition and the SCAF s ongoing dialogue with President california hotel Mursi, the U.S. official wrote of Sunday s meeting, referring to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military council that took over from Mubarak when he was ousted in February last year, the culmination of an 18-day street revolt driven by anger at poverty and corruption.
After seeing Tantawi, Clinton met a group of Egyptian entrepreneurs and then was scheduled to hold separate talks with women and Christians, both groups that fear their rights may be curtailed under a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government.
Several hundred protesters relatively few by recent Egyptian standards chanted anti-U.S. and anti-Islamist slogans outside Clinton s hotel on Saturday night. Some said the United States had backed the Brotherhood s rise to power.
She wanted, in very, very clear terms, particularly with the Christian group this morning, to dispel that notion and to make clear that only Egyptians can choose their leaders, that we have not supported any candidate, any party, and we will not, a senior U.S. official told reporters.
Clinton was due to travel then to Alexandria for a flag raising ceremony at a reopened U.S. Consulate in the Mediterranean port city and then to Jerusalem for talks on Israeli-Palestinian peace before returning to Washington.
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