The United States has made it clear that it "cannot and would not try to dictate any outcome" of a political dialogue between the Egyptian government and pro-democracy protesters.
The clarification was made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a special briefing for the media accompanying her after attending the Munich Security Conference.
At the same time, "we know what kind of outcome we would like to see for them, for the region, for us," she said.
"As a country having a record of being in the forefront of change in the region, it now has an opportunity to open up politically and economically in ways that will meet the needs of the largely young population that is not only a reality inside Egypt, but the principal voice of the protest."
Clinton said the U.S. government had been very consistent in its position on Egypt from the beginning that "we do not want to see any violence, but peaceful protests. We want to see a process begun that will lead to an orderly transition that has milestones and concrete steps that lead us toward free and fair elections that install a new President who reflects the will and wishes of the Egyptian people."
She made it clear that it was up to the 80 million Egyptians who are having to grapple with the reality to decide what they must do.
"We think democracy works better. We think open economies work better. We think cracking down on corruption works better. We believe all of that, because we think it is in the best interest not only of the Egyptian people, but of everyone else," she added.
Clinton described Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's decision not to seek re-election, his announcement that his son would not run again, that he and his son were resigning their positions of the national party, and installing a Vice- President for the first time in 30 years as "a very important set of steps being taken to keep the movement going in the direction that we seek."
She portrayed a picture of confusion among the Egyptian community, saying, "And to be fair, they are also calling and saying, How do we do this? What is it that you think would work? And when I met with all of the leaders yesterday, particularly Prime Minister Cameron and Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Davutoglu and Lady Ashton, everybody has had contacts from a broad cross-section of Egyptian society: the business community, the academic community, and everybody else. And a lot of people are saying, What can you do to help us? How do you form a political party? How do you prepare for elections? What kind of assistance can you offer to us?"
She said Washington was "going to try to work with a lot of like-minded countries around the world to offer whatever assistance we can" to help that country in facing challenges such as "economic changes and constitutional changes."
Clinton warned that "the fact that both Tunisia and Egypt have had this outpouring of frustration by predominantly young people -- as far as we can tell, unorganized, undirected -- should send a clear signal to everybody in the region."
Answering a question, she vowed that the U.S. government was "unalterably, unequivocally committed to Israel's security, and will continue to support, and believe that the peace process is in both Israel's interests and the Palestinians."
During her talk with Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik at the weekend, Clinton emphasized the need to ensure that the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people are met, and that a broad cross-section of political actors and civil society have to be a part of the Egyptian-led process.
She also stressed that incidents of harassment and detention of activists, journalists and other elements of civil society must stop.
Meanwhile, talks between the Egyptian government and pro-democracy protesters failed to end the stand-off as activists stuck to their demand that Mubarak step down immediately.
The meeting, discussing political reform, took place on Sunday as the country began to slowly assert some level of normalcy, reports say.
Nearly 300 people are estimated to have died in two-weeks of anti-government protests seeking Mubarak's resignation.
Earlier, President Barack Obama urged the formation of a representative government in Egypt, which gives voice to all sections of the North African nation's population.
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