WASHINGTON, November 4 (Islamonline.net & News Agencies) - As Egypt's journalists demanded Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher summon the U.S. ambassador in Cairo for his sharp criticism of the country's press, the U.S. State Department supported its diplomat, saying that he was "a strong and articulate defender of a free and responsible press."

During a conference at the American University in Cairo (AUC) October 20, David Welch deplored what he called "regrettable articles" in the Egyptian press "proposing crazy conspiracy theories, or attacking the United States in very hostile terms," reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He took particular offense to Al-Gomhouria newspaper for describing an October 4 Palestinian bombing in the northern Israeli city of Haifa as a "brave commando operation' rather than a purely terrorist act, that's both hostile and dishonest."

"We support his comments, and we believe that they were made in the spirit of friendship and mutual interest in press freedoms," State Department Spokesman Adam Ereli said Monday, November 3.

"The essential point I would make is that Ambassador Welch is a strong and articulate defender of a free and responsible press, and those are the points that any ambassador makes, and that Ambassador Welch has been particularly eloquent in making in Egypt in his dealings with ... Egyptian journalists," Ereli added.

The defense of Welch comes a day after the Egyptian Journalists' Union sent a letter to the Egyptian Foreign Minister urging summon the U.S. ambassador "to prevent him from continuing his campaign against the local media."

"The repeated interference of the U.S. Ambassador in the affairs of the Egyptian press violates diplomatic rules," the journalists' group said.

It called anew on "the organs of the press, the writers, the journalists and national forces not to deal with this Ambassador, and to consider him persona non grata for reason of his opposition to freedom of the press and to the causes and interests of the Arab people."

Last month, the official MENA news agency said the Egyptian Journalists' Union also refused a USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) grant of $1.35 million to sponsor training for 50 journalists at a university in the United States.