The Cable

The Cable goes inside the foreign policy machine, from Foggy Bottom to Turtle Bay, the White House to Embassy Row.

Briefing Skipper: Steinberg, Clinton, Mitchell, Holbrooke, Campbell

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’s briefing by Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs P.J. Crowley: Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg met with PRC Politburo Member Minister Li Yuanchao today. Perhaps the term "strategic deterrence" came up? George ...

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's briefing by Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs P.J. Crowley:

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’s briefing by Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs P.J. Crowley:

  • Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg met with PRC Politburo Member Minister Li Yuanchao today. Perhaps the term "strategic deterrence" came up?
  • George Mitchell came back from the Middle East and now it’s the Israelis’ and the Palestinians’ turn to come to Washington, on the 15th and 20th, respectively. The State Department generally welcomes the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation plan put forth by Egypt, even if the two sides couldn’t even get together in one room to sign the thing.
  • Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may or may not make a stop in Israel in November, as part of her trip to Morroco. "Travel plans are still up in the air," Crowley said, but she WILL go to Pakistan.
  • Speaking of which, AfPak envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi today to discuss the fallout over the Kerry-Lugar aid bill and perhaps the fate of Pakistan’s Amb. Husain Haqqani. Qureshi will also go to the White House and Capitol Hill to talk about the aid conditions on the bill. "We do not think that the bill in any way impinges on Pakistani sovereignty," Crowley said.
  • Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell was in Beijing today and Tokyo this past weekend. No word on whether North Korea’s firing of more missiles today was related to that and no word on whether the U.S. is going to send Amb. Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang.
  • No comment on Russian Prime Minister Sergei Lavrov’s statements seeming to push back against the idea of more sanctions on Iran. Crowley said, "Right now the focus is on … what will happen on Oct. 25 [when the IAEA is due to inspect the Qom nuclear site] and then what will happen in the aftermath of that."
  • Crowley confirms that Turkey disinvited Israel from participating in the military exercises known as Anatolian Eagle, leading to their cancellation, in the latest sign of deteriorating relations between Jerusalem and Ankara.

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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