US President Barack Obama pledged 1 billion dollars in debt relief for Egypt to ease the country's transition toward a more open and viable economy, DPA reported.
"We do not want a democratic Egypt to be saddled by the debts of its past," Obama said in a major foreign policy address on the region.
The speech marked his first comprehensive response to the transformation underway in the Middle East and North Africa following the mass uprisings this year that toppled longstanding regimes n Egypt and Tunisia and spread to other countries.