Briefing Skipper: Clinton in Kabul, Chinese bribes, Iran, Iraq, Tegucigalpa
In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights of Friday’s briefing at the Foreign Press Center by Department Spokesman Ian Kelly: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Kabul today. The Cable has all the details of her agenda, where she delivered ...
In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights of Friday’s briefing at the Foreign Press Center by Department Spokesman Ian Kelly:
- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Kabul today. The Cable has all the details of her agenda, where she delivered an anti-corruption message to Afghan President Hamid Karzai before his inauguration and met with U.S. troops, foreign ministers, and embassy staff.
- No confirmation of reports that the Chinese bribed Afghanistan’s minister of mines, Muhammad Ibrahim Adel, in order to secure a $3 billion contract. "Corruption is a serious problem, and we expect [Karzai] to take concrete action to fight this problem," Kelly said, "The executive branch has to look into these allegations that were in The Washington Post today. And then, we need to have a prosecutorial part of it."
- After the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Iran will not send any uranium out of the country, the State Department still doesn’t consider this a formal response to the IAEA’s proposed deal. "Until the IAEA gets the response and formally says this is Iran’s response, I don’t consider a statement to the press necessarily a response," said Kelly, "We’re not going to close any door on the engagement track. But at a certain point, I think, we’re going to start paying a little more attention to the other track. We’re not quite at that point right now. But as I said before, I think that time is short."
- The State Department is "disappointed" that Iraqi Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi vetoed the Iraqi election law, throwing plans to hold the polls in January into disarray. "We urge the Iraqi Parliament to take quick action," Kelly said, adding that U.S. troop withdrawal timetables would not be affected.
- Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Craig Kelly is still in Tegucigalpa meeting with de factor regime leader Roberto Micheletti and ousted president Manuel Zelaya. The Honduran parliament won’t vote on whether to restore Zelaya until after the November 29 election, but that is fine because the accord that both parties are working under only says parliament should vote, not when, according to Kelly. "Scheduling the vote on December 2nd isn’t necessarily inconsistent with the accord," he said. Somehow that doesn’t change the U.S. position of calling for restoration of the democratically elected president, said Kelly, even though Zelaya would be the lamest of lame ducks, that is if the vote goes his way.
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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