The Cable

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Breifing Skipper: Cairo, Sikorksi, Burma, Japan, Goldstone

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 Department Spokesman Ian Kelly: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at the Forum for the Future and "reaffirmed the commitment of the United States to broad engagement with Muslim communities ...

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 Department Spokesman Ian Kelly:

  • Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at the Forum for the Future and "reaffirmed the commitment of the United States to broad engagement with Muslim communities around the world," Kelly said. Then she moved on to Cairo where she met with Intelligence Minister General Omar Suleiman and Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit. Wednesday she will meet with President Hosni Mubarak. .
  • Clinton’s meeting with Polish Prime Minister Radoslaw Sikorski planned for Wednesday was cancelled, despite the fact that he was already in Washington.
  • Middle East Special Envoy George Mitchell will join Clinton Wednesday in Cairo after meeting Tuesday in Amman with King Abdullah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
  • North Korea’s announcement that it had reprocessed enough plutonium for another nuclear bomb is a violation of agreements and UN Security Council resolutions, Kelly said, although the State Department is not official condemning remarks the regime made to that effect.
  • Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell is in Burma now and will stop in Tokyo Thursday before returning to the U.S. Tomorrow he will meet with imprisoned democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. The new Japanese government is still deciding how to position themselves regarding the relocation of a key U.S. air base in Okinawa. "Ultimately, it’s for the government of Japan to decide what kind of relationship that they’re going to have with us," Kelly said.
  • State Department is not explicitly again the UN General Assembly discussing again the Goldstone report, which the House condemned on Tuesday, but "our priority is that we don’t want to do anything that’s going to make it more difficult to resume talks," Kelly said.
  • Still no agreement on a date or agenda for another P5+1 meeting with Iran.

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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