US Republican Senator John McCain has called on the US government to suspend financial aid to the Egyptian army, following a military coup that overthrew the elected president Mohamed Morsi.

“We have to suspend aid to Egyptian military because the military has overturned the vote of the people,” McCain, who is also a member of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, said on Friday.

“We cannot repeat the same mistakes that we made in other times of our history by supporting removal of freely elected governments.”

McCain said that Washington should demand Egyptian army to set a timetable for elections and for making of a new constitution.

“And then we should evaluate whether to continue with aid or not,” McCain said.

US has been granting financial aid to Egypt since 1979, which is considered a critical US national security priority.

The country receives the second-highest amount of American financial assistance after Israel. The US provides $1.5bn a year to Egypt in military and economic assistance and around $1.3bn of this amount goes the the Egyptian army.