Briefing Skipper: Pakistan arrests, MEK, Taiwan arms, Amanda Knox

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights of Thursday’s briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley:

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Thursday with Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Jandrokovic and expressed her support for Croatia to become a member of the EU.
• A State Department team met with the five suburban Washington men who were arrested in Pakistan, who are likely to be extradited back to the U.S. More visits by consular officials are expected soon. "We are going to find out, you know, how they made their way from Washington DC to Pakistan, why they were there, what their intentions were," Crowley said.
• Ambassador Stephen Bosworth has left North Korea and returned to Seoul. He will go to Beijing Friday, Tokyo on Saturday, and Moscow on Sunday. As for his time with the DPRK, "I think we would characterize this meeting as a good start," Crowley said, adding that it had been made clear to the Norks that the U.S. would not give them any incentives to return to the Six Party Talks. In other words, no real breakthroughs. The North Koreans were also notably quiet about the visit.
• Crowley somewhat rejected the calls by Pakistani President Asif ali Zardari for a U.S. role in mediating the Pakistan-India dispute in Kashmir, as outlined in a New York Times op-ed. "I’m not aware that we’ve been asked to play a specific role at this point," Crowley said, adding, "I think it was a fine op-ed."
• No real comment on Iraqi government plans to move members of the Iranian opposition group MEK to a remote desert former detention camp. But Crowley did comment on the recent assaults on the group by the Iraqi security forces. "The Government of Iraq has a right to do that. At the same time, the operation itself… the way it was carried out resulted in, we think, unnecessary violence," he said.
• No progress to report on U.S.-Russia negotiations over a follow on to the START nuclear weapons reduction treaty, but the end of the year is still the expected deadline (despite that verification lapsed Dec. 5). When asked if the Russians were jamming the process to avoid giving the U.S. something like a win, Crowley said it was "kind of a Cold War kind of a question." Exactly.
• On reports of an impending arms sales announcement to Taiwan (first report by The Cable), Crowley said that nothing was final but "I doubt seriously that our position has changed, and I doubt seriously that the Chinese position has changed."
• State Department Counselor Cheryl Mills met with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-WA, about the case of Amanda Knox, the American girl convicted of sexual assault and murder in Italy. Previously, the State Department said that Clinton might meet with Cantwell, but nothing scheduled yet. "There are always developments, but they may not involve us," Crowley said when asked about the issue.
• Crowley said a new P5+1 meeting on Iraq at the political director level would probably come before the end of the year, to be announced from the European side.