President Obama should be “direct and unambiguous” when he meets with Egyptian leader Mohammed Morsi on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in September, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said Tuesday.

Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), one of the leading critics of radical Islam in Congress, said he's had “real concerns” about Mohammed Morsi since before the Muslim Brotherhood candidate won Egypt's first-ever free presidential election last month. The comments underscore the tight line the administration is walking as it seeks to bolster the democratically elected leader while urging him to respect religious rights and the country's 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

“The president must make it clear that the United States is not going to engage in any kind of politically correct game with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood and will not even begin to consider pro-Islamist and insulting proposals,” King said in a statement.

The comments come after Egyptian officials said over the weekend that Obama had “extended an invitation” to Morsi to visit the United States in September. White House spokesman Jay Carney downplayed the meeting's importance on Monday, calling it a mere “encounter.”

The cautious approach by the administration reflects the unease that some lawmakers have about the Muslim Brotherhood.

U.S. trade officials told Congress on Monday that Mexico will join talks over an Asia-Pacific trade deal. 

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk sent a letter to lawmakers stating that Mexico's entry into Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations "increases the economic significance" of the free trade agreement. 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) applauded the notification, which is a longstanding practice before engaging nations in trade discussions. 

"Mexico’s participation should result in even greater benefits to U.S. employers, workers and farmers," Camp said. 

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) on Monday wrote to President Obama asking him to fire the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam over what Wolf called his “sidelining” of human-rights issues in the communist country.

In his letter to the president, Wolf accuses David Shear of reneging on his commitment to invite prominent prominent advocates of human rights and religious freedoms to the embassy's July 4th celebration. Wolf said Shear made the promise over the phone after a contentious congressional hearing in May during which the wife of a U.S. citizen said Shear hadn't contacted her since her the arrest of her husband, democracy activist Nguyen Quoc Quan, on terrorism charges upon his arrival in Vietnam a month earlier.

“Late last week it was brought to my attention that many of the most prominent democracy and human rights activists in Vietnam were not invited to the event,” Wolf wrote. “These reports seemed starkly at odds with the assurances I had personally received from Ambassador Shear.”

The Senate Finance Committee is looking to hold a highly anticipated markup of Russia trade and human rights measures next week, sources said Monday.

The committee will consider legislation extending permanent normal trade relations to Russia and a separate bill aimed at punishing those accused of killing Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky. 

The Magnitsky bill would allow members of Congress to request that the executive branch apply financial and visa sanctions on individuals. The State Department would have to justify not applying the sanctions.

The Magnitsky bill was reported out of Senate Foreign Relations last month even though Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) said he had concerns about the scope of the bill. As written it can be applied to human rights abuses outside Russia. Business groups plan to lobby Kerry this week with a list of proposed changes. 

Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has agreed to move the Magnitsky bill and PNTR together through his committee.

Russia's legislative Duma plans to vote on joining the World Trade Organization on Tuesday. Approval would set in motion a process ending in Russia joining the WTO in August. Once in the organization, Russia will be able to discriminate against U.S. exports unless the U.S. approves a PNTR bill.

Currently, the U.S. grants temporary normal trade relations to Russia by waiving the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a law put in place in the 1980s to punish the Soviet Union for preventing Jewish emigration.

The White House spokesman said the two leaders would "encounter each other" at the UN General Assemby, but not "one-on-one."

A new meeting between senior European Union and Iranian officials has been scheduled later this month as the two sides struggle to find common ground in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

The deputies of the two chief negotiators, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, will meet in Istanbul on July 24, Ashton’s spokesman said Monday.

The deputies, EU’s Helga Schmid and Iran’s Ali Bagheri, are holding the second meeting this month to discuss more technical negotiations about Iran’s nuclear program.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on a whirlwind tour of Asia this week, hoping to convince allies that the administration's much-touted “pivot to Asia” is about promoting human rights and democracy, rather than curtailing China's rise.

Clinton acknowledged that U.S. military outreach to regional partners worried about Chinese ambitions has dominated the headlines since the administration announced the new strategy last fall.

The realignment, however, has three main dimensions — security, economic and “common values” — she said in a speech Monday, the last of which is at the “heart” of U.S. policy vis-a-vis Asia.

“I have to say that in many ways, the heart of our strategy, the piece that binds all the rest of it together, is our support for democracy and human rights,” Clinton said during a visit to Mongolia. “Those are not only my nation’s most cherished values; they are the birthright of every person born in the world.”

Clinton's visit to the continent — she attended an Afghan donors' conference in Japan over the weekend and next travels to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum – follows Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's own highly scrutinized Asia trip last month. 

Panetta met with other Asian defense chiefs in Singapore to discuss tensions in the South China Sea and other hotspots where China is asserting its power, following earlier announcements that the United States is boosting its military presence in Australia, the Philippines and other areas.

Pakistani officials suspect a brazen attack against one of the country's military bases on Monday may have been the work of Islamic militants angered over the recent deal to reopen supply routes to U.S. and coalition forces.