US State Secretary cancels trip to Egypt

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has canceled her planned trip to Egypt to express what local officials say US displeasure at the jailing of an Egyptian opposition figure last month.

Rice had planned the trip to Egypt and possibly other countries in the Middle East after attending a conference on Palestinian reform to be held in London next Tuesday, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Rice called off the planned trip on Friday following a tense meeting in Washington last week with her Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Aboul Gheit over the jailing of Ayman Nour, head of an opposition party called Al Ghad.

Rice's visit to Egypt was not officially announced, but Egyptian officials had reportedly said that Rice would join the foreign ministers from the G-8 industrial nations and the Arab League in Cairo next week to discuss political and economic reform in the region.

But Egypt postponed the conference after Rice voiced her displeasure at the jailing.

Egypt protested that the arrest of Nour was an internal matter of Egypt and the spokesman for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Suleiman Awad, said he rejected "any foreign interference in Egypt's internal affairs."