Briefing Skipper: Sudan, North Korea, Bosworth, Iran, Niger
In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights of Monday’s briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley: The State Department welcomes the announced framework agreement between the government of Sudan and the Darfuri rebel Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM. "The agreed cease-fire between ...
In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. Here are the highlights of Monday's briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley:
In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. Here are the highlights of Monday’s briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley:
- The State Department welcomes the announced framework agreement between the government of Sudan and the Darfuri rebel Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM. "The agreed cease-fire between the government of Sudan and JEM is an important first step towards reducing violence in Darfur, and comes on the heels of important new agreements between the governments of Chad and Sudan to reduce tensions along their shared border," Crowley said. Special Envoy Scott Gration is in Doha with the UN-AU mediation team now.
- Ambassadors Steve Bosworth and and Special Envoy Sung Kim will start a visit Tuesday to Beijing, Soeul, and Tokyo to consult with partners about the stalled Six Party Talks over North Korea’s nuclear program.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will host Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan here at the State Department on Friday. "We are looking for a signal from North Korea, and we’re still waiting for that signal," said Crowley.
- Special Representative Richard Holbrooke is on his way to Germany after completing meetings in several countries including Georgia and Kazakhstan. In Georgia he met with President Mikheil Saakashvili and reviewed Georgia’s troops readying for Afghanistan, called the "Holbrooke Brigade." In Kazakhstan he met with Prime Minister Karim Masimov and State Secretary Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev.
- On Iran, Crowley said that the Tehran research reactor proposal is "still on the table," but warned that Iran’s latest announcement that it plans to build more enrichment sites inside mountains "adds to the questions rather than resolves the questions that the international community has.’
- The unfortunate deaths of dozens of Afghan civilians in an airstrike does not conflict with the policy of minimizing the impact of the new offensive on Afghan populations, Crowley said. ‘In conflict, mistakes are made, or there are unfortunate, you know — you know, impacts that could not have been anticipated."
- No direct comment on the collapse of the Dutch government over disagreements about their Afghanistan deployment.
- The State Department is calling for a speedy return of civilian rule in Niger following last week’s coup. "We support the efforts of ECOWAS, the African Union and the United Nations, you know, to promote Niger’s speedy return to the rule of law, and together we will hold Niger to those public pledges," he said
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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