Release of American Hostages

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOEVEN. I wish to thank the esteemed Senator from Arizona for allowing me to join him on the floor today to talk about this very important issue that has had a favorable outcome. Even more importantly, I want to express my great appreciation and gratitude to Senator McCain and Senator Graham for organizing the opportunity for us to go over to Egypt, and to not only meet with our NGO workers at the U.S. Embassy, but to engage in conversations and meetings with military and government leaders on this very important issue.

It is not just these seven Americans we are very concerned about, and their safety--which obviously is paramount. But as Senator Graham indicated, this situation clearly had ramifications for the relationship on a longer term basis between Egypt and the United States, and Egypt and Israel, particularly in regard to the peace treaty.

So taking this initiative to sit down with Field Marshal Tantawi, who is the leader of the military council, but also the leaders of the Freedom and Justice Party--which is the majority party now in the Parliament. Of course, that is the Muslim Brotherhood. We sat down with the Muslim Brotherhood as well. I think those meetings were extremely important in helping to foster an understanding that broke the logjam.

I too want to commend the work of our Ambassador, Ambassador Anne Patterson. She did an outstanding job. I want to thank Secretary Clinton and the people at the State Department for their diligent efforts. But I must say, having the opportunity to be part of a delegation led by Senator McCain and Senator Graham gave us the opportunity to talk to the Muslim Brotherhood, gave us the opportunity to talk to the leaders of the Freedom and Justice Party. And the next day they put out a statement, which I agree was very important in helping move things forward, because what they said in that statement involved two things, two things that I do think helped break the logjam; first, that they support non government organizations. They support non government organizations. They recognize that these NGOs do important work, and they want to address the laws in Egypt to make sure they have good laws that will enable the NGOs to continue.
The second thing they said, which I thought was particularly important, is they also expressed their concern about NGO workers, and that those NGO workers be treated fairly.

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Mr. HOEVEN. I echo the sentiments of the good Senator from South Carolina. What I would like to add is I think that is exactly the right question to pose. The Senator from Connecticut says: Where do we go from here? I think that is right-on. There is no question in my mind but that the relationships Senator McCain and Senator Graham have built overseas made a difference for the United States and our foreign policy. This is a clear example of it.

When we sat down with Field Marshal Tantawi, when we met with other government leaders, even when we met with the Muslim Brotherhood, because of the fact that there was a relationship there, that they knew these individuals, there was some level of trust there that enabled us to engage in very important communications that produced a message that I think was integral to the resolution of this situation, which could have been a very bad one.

These relationships matter when we talk about working with other countries, particularly in that part of the world. There are so many differences between our countries and how we operate that having some relationships where people can sit down, have these discussions, and talk about how we work together and foster some future agreement and some mutual understanding is vitally important.

At the meeting with the Freedom and Justice Party parliamentary members, we invited them to come visit us. I think that would be very helpful and very important, not only so these new leaders and their parliament have a better sense of the United States and how we work and the kinds of relationships we can foster in both business and government but also so the Members of this Senate, of this Congress, and our people here get a better sense of them as well. I believe that is very important as we track forward with this new, young government that is now embarking on writing a constitution and governing in a vitally important country in the Middle East. At this point, I would like to turn things back to the good Senator from Arizona, with my sincere gratitude.

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