U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. will make a decision "very soon" on how to unfreeze hundreds of millions of dollars in suspended American military aid to Egypt, the Associate Press reports.
Egypt has been trying to acquire F-16 fighter aircraft, tanks and other material to combat the extremist threat in the Sinai Peninsula and neighboring Libya.
The Obama administration believes that the money is critical to stability in the Middle East.
But the Obama administration must first either assess whether the Egyptian government has made progress in human rights, democracy and the rule of law, or the administration must declare that such aid is in the interests of U.S. national security.
The aid was suspended after the Egyptian military's 2013 takeover of the government following the ousting of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.
Kerry spoke at a news conference at the Economic Forum in Sharm Al-Sheikh, Egypt on Saturday.
