Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta played down concerns Tuesday about a rift between Egypt's newly elected president and its military chief following a brief stopover in Cairo aimed at giving senior U.S. officials a better sense of how the country's first Islamist administration will govern.
The recent election of President Mohamed Morsi, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has provoked unease among secular Egyptians, the military and Egyptian Christians, who worry that the country's Islamists will upend a long tradition of secular rule.
Comments