CAIRO, February 13 (IslamOnline.net) - A U.S. congressional delegation is to arrive in Cairo Sunday, February 15, for talks with Egyptian activists on human rights and democratic reforms, well-placed political sources told IslamOnline.net.

The U.S. Embassy had invited more than 20 activists and politicians, including Islamic figures, to meet the delegation in a luncheon at the house of the Embassy’s political counselor, the sources said.

The Embassy’s press attaché Philip Green confirmed the visit, adding the delegation would be updated on the views of the civil society leaders and the government regarding a number of what he termed “issues of concern to the Congress”.

Green named these issues as human rights and the development of democracy in the heavyweight leading Middle East country.

The delegation would meet representatives of political forces and officials from the Foreign Ministry, he added.

Although Green denied knowledge that the Embassy extended invitation for ‘Islamic figures’ to meet the delegation, an Islamic activist told IOL of the contrary.

“I was contacted by the Embassy for the meeting,” Abu Al-Ella Madi, a leading figure of Egypt’s Center Party said.

Madi turned down the invitation, saying he could not receive personal invitations, in reference to the place of the luncheon.

Expressing deep resentment over the U.S. practices in Iraq and a number of world countries, Madi said “this made me think it over before sitting on a table with the American visitors”.

But Essam Al-Erian, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood - which is banned but tolerated in the country - denied that he received any invitations for the gathering.

Erian and other leaders of the group, including members of Parliament, had attended a dialogue with a European delegation in March 2003.

The U.S. delegation’s arrival comes a few weeks before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s annual visit to Washington.

The U.S. administration has been facing waves of calls to push democracy further in the Middle East with Egypt - the most populous in the region - be on the lead.

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives Anthony Weiner introduced a bill late last month reporting as a fact “rumors that President Mubarak was grooming his son to take over the Presidency”.

The Egyptian Counterterrorism and Political Reform Act, presented quietly on 21 January, says that “Egypt is a dictatorship” and that “the due process and separation of powers key to any functioning democracy have been stifled in Egypt” over the past 22 years, the semi-official newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly said in its last week’s issue.

There was no reaction from the U.S. administration to the bill though a source at the State Department told the Weekly that such bills “are not helpful”.

Egyptian press also reacted in anger over U.S. Middle East initiatives to spread democracy, with many analysts saying that they do rather serve Washington’s interests in the region.

Al-Ahram semi-official daily said these ideas could not work in the region given the complicated varied situations in each Arab country.

The paper referred to what it called utter failure of U.S. occupation forces in Iraq.

He announced a new American "forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East”, for what he called a major rethinking of the U.S. policy towards the region.