The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that succeeded President Hosni Mubarak when he stepped down Friday after a 18-day popular revolt has set a six-month timetable for holding national elections.

But it has not yet set a date for lifting the emergency law that gives wide powers of arrests and that Mubarak kept in place throughout his nearly 30 years in power.

"It's not for me to counsel them," Clinton said when a journalist for Al-Jazeera television asked what she would advise the military rulers about the emergency law.

"This is an Egyptian process that must be directed and defined by the Egyptian people. One of the demands which we have supported for a long time is to lift the emergency decree," Clinton told her interviewer.

"There has been an announcement that will be done and we hope that it will be," the chief US diplomat said.

She refused to be drawn when pressed on how soon she would like it lifted, adding the United States and others well-wishers should be "supportive but don't pretend that we know more than what the people in Egypt know."

Speaking to reporters during a visit to the US Congress earlier, Clinton said that Egypt's military has so far taken "reassuring" steps towards democratic reforms but warned much work remains and offered US help.

"This is a very challenging moment for the Egyptian military," Clinton told

"The steps they've taken so far are reassuring, but there's a long way to go, and the United States has made it clear that we stand ready to assist in any way appropriate," she said.

Clinton cited longstanding military-to-military ties between Washington and Cairo, mentioned by experts as a key factor in the Egyptian army's handling of unprecedented protests that ended former president Hosni Mubarak's three decades in power.

"I think the Egyptian military demonstrated its very strong commitment to the people of Egypt in its restraint and its support of their right to demonstrate," said the top US diplomat.

"They are now being asked to assume a responsibility that wasn't in the guidebook for young officers -- how to lead a country through an orderly, peaceful meaningful transition to a democratic future," she said.

"Thus far they've demonstrated a seriousness of purpose and a commitment to pursuing the kind of transition" that will lead to free and fair elections and to broad democratic reforms and an inclusive government, said Clinton.

"We're going to continue working, not just with the military, with civil society with a broad range of representatives from across Egypt's full breadth and depth," she said.

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