Kerry to meet Sisi in Egypt amid crackdown

US Secretary of State John Kerry will visit Cairo on Wednesday for talks with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, amid a stark crackdown on political freedoms in Egypt.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Kerry would fly to Cairo after talks on the Syrian crisis in Vienna and before heading to Brussels to meet NATO allies.

The spokesman did not say what would be on the agenda in Cairo beyond "a range of bilateral and regional issues‎".

Kerry will then head to Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh with US President Barack Obama to attend the Gulf Cooperation Council summit.

Last week US government auditors criticised Kerry's department for authorising arms sales to Egypt without properly checking that they would not be used in rights abuses. 

The United States has again grown supportive of Egypt, long a key Middle East ally, as Sisi battles an Islamic State (IS) group insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.

However, Washington has remained critical of Egypt's human rights record.

On Sunday, an Egyptian court jailed 152 people who protested against Sisi's government, the latest stage in what rights groups say is an authoritarian assault on dissent.

Sisi seized power from Egypt's first ever democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in a July 2013 coup.