Kerry checked by security before meeting Egyptian President

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Egyptian security officers checked U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his top aides with a metal detector as they arrived for a meeting on Tuesday with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, an unusual screening for a senior State Department official. Foreign officials usually extend every courtesy to Washington’s top diplomat. Footage taken at the Egyptian presidential palace where an official briefly raising a handheld metal-detecting wand to the lower part of Kerry’s jacket before waving him through for the meeting, which is to discuss how to stop the two-week conflict between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip. More than 500 people, the vast majority Palestinians, have died in the fighting. Kerry appeared for only a few seconds in the footage, which showed his senior aides walking through a stationary metal detector and being checked with a handheld wand. At least one was asked to empty his pockets. The aides included Kerry’s deputy chief of staff Jonathan Finer, senior adviser David Thorne and spokeswoman Jen Psaki. (Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Michael Georgy and Louise Ireland). /End/