NEW YORK: Egypt’s relations with the United States are “unsettled” as the country struggles to redefine its national interests vis-à-vis other countries, the foreign minister said.

The US was a close ally of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s longtime authoritarian ruler who was ousted in an uprising in early 2011. America counted on him to keep the peace with Israel and as a bulwark against the rise of fundamentalists in the Mideast.

Relations were less cozy with the Muslim Brotherhood, which then rose to power through democratic elections. Then the Brotherhood’s Muhammad Mursi was ousted from the presidency at the end of June for failing to form an inclusive government.

Interim Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy is now part of a government appointed by Egypt’s interim president, who was installed by Egypt’s powerful military after Mursi’s ouster.

“We have had two revolutions in 2-1/2 years. Egyptians are trying to define their own identity,” Fahmy told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday in New York, where he is attending the UN’s annual meeting of world leaders. “We are looking outwards and trying to determine who our friends are. It’s an emotional process.”

Fahmy, a veteran diplomat who served as Cairo’s ambassador in Washington for nine years previously, said the US is also adapting to a new reality created by Arab Spring uprisings that have swept through Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain over the past three years.

“The Americans, like most of the world, to be fair to the Americans, have always been used to dealing with governments in the Arab world, not with people, ” Fahmy said.