Briefing Skipper: Berlin, Fort Hood, Dalai Lama, Seymour Hersh
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 is in Berlin today at the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She met with Chancellor Angela Merkel, ...
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 is in Berlin today at the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She met with Chancellor Angela Merkel, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, U.S. embassy staff and German students. Next she will go to Singapore for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ministerial meetings, then over to the Philippines, and then back to Singapore to be at Obama’s side for the APEC summit.
- The State Department has not confirmed that Iran has charged the three hikers they’ve been detaining, but "We believe that there is no evidence for these kinds of charges," Kelly said. They are trying "constantly" to get some access to the hikers through the Swiss embassy in Tehran.
- On the alleged ties of Major Nidal Hasan to extremist groups, Kelly said, "I’m not sure that there is any link between the horrible acts that took place at Fort Hood a couple of days and our ongoing struggle against extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
- President Obama will meet with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tonight, but there are no immediate plans for Special Envoy George Mitchell to return to the region, Kelly said.
- The U.S. government doesn’t have a specific position on the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, which the Chinese are so unhappy about. "He of course has the right to go wherever he wants and talk to people that he chooses to talk to," Kelly said.
- The U.S. is still waiting for a n official response from Iran to the uranium transfer proposal put forth by the IAEA. "We’re not putting any kind of formal deadline on it," said Kelly, "But I think you’ve heard the secretary say that our patience is not infinite,"
- No news on the stalled agreement in Honduras and no decision on whether to send Ambassador Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang.
- But Kelly did respond to the new article by Seymour Hersh questioning the safety and security of Pakistan’s vast nuclear arsenal. "Let me just say the U.S. has no intention of seizing Pakistani nuclear weapons or material," he said, "We have confidence in the ability of the Pakistani government to provide adequate security for their nuclear programs and materials."
(Correction: Netanyahu’s title corrected to "prime minister.")
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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