Briefing skipper: Cuba, Pakistan, Nauru, Bosworth
In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights of Wednesday’s briefing by spokesman Ian Kelly: Cuba is in violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by not giving the State Department access to the detained American contractor who was arrested there ...
In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights of Wednesday’s briefing by spokesman Ian Kelly:
- Cuba is in violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by not giving the State Department access to the detained American contractor who was arrested there for passing out electronic devices to Cuban dissidents, Kelly said.
- No new information on the 5 detained suburban Washingtonians being held in Pakistan. Also no comment on the news that American diplomats are getting harassed all over Pakistan these days.
- Kelly wouldn’t play on the story about the Iranian document that explains their drive to build a nuclear trigger, but did say, "We have plenty of reasons to have concerns about the Iranian nuclear program."
- The State Department is not impressed that the tiny Pacific island of Nauru has recognized the independence of Georgian breakaway provinces South Ossetia and Abkhasia. "The recognition by Nauru in and of itself does absolutely nothing, in our eyes, to help establish or underpin in some way the legitimacy of the de facto governments in both of those separatist regions," Kelly said.
- Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s delay in announcing his cabinet is no big deal, according to Kelly. "I don’t think that a delay of a few days is necessarily indicative of any particular problem; I think it’s more indicative of the fact that they want to make sure that they have the kind of government that will be effective and will enjoy the support of the Afghan people," he said.
- Kelly confirms that Ambassador Stephen Bosworth did in fact deliver a letter from President Obama to the North Koreans, even though Bosworth declined to confirm it himself. "I am the message," Bosworth declared.
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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