The Cable

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Briefing Skipper: Blair, Goldstone Report, Amiri, Mugabe

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights of today and yesterday’s briefings by spokesman Ian Kelly: The National Security Council met on Afghanistan today and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also had a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National ...

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights of today and yesterday’s briefings by spokesman Ian Kelly:

  • The National Security Council met on Afghanistan today and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also had a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Advisor Jim Jones. Earlier today, Clinton met with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair about Mideast peace and Palestinian institution-building.
  • The Libyans forced the U.N. Security Council to take up the question of whether to discuss the Goldstone Report today, not allowing it "to go gently into that good night or just fall off the radar screen," as one State Department press corpsman put it. The State Department thinks the U.N. Human Rights Council is the best venue to discuss the report, if they should discuss it, which they shouldn’t, Kelly said. "We believe that it was in the interest of all concerned, of all who share this common goal of relaunching these negotiations, to delay discussion of this report."
  • Still no decision on whether to accept the North Korean offer for bilateral talks that could lead to a resumption of the Six-Party Talks. There was a readout from the Chinese of their meeting with Kim Jong Il, but that wasn’t enough for the administration to come to a decision.
  • Iran is accusing the U.S. of involvement in the disappearance of researcher Shahram Amiri, but the State Department has never heard of him. "The case is not familiar to us. The name is not familiar to us," said Kelly, not speaking on behalf of any other U.S. agencies that might be involved.
  • The State Department is not quite ready to jump at Robert Mugabe‘s offer to start fresh with countries around the world. "So what we would like to see is some real and concrete action," Kelly said.
  • Clinton will be in Moscow Oct. 13 and 14 and is also considering a visit to "another city in Russia," but not St. Petersburg.

Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.

Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.

A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.

Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin

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