Briefing Skipper: Chile, Middle East talks, Libya, Afgan drugs, North Korea
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 P.J. Crowley: The State Department has moved a five-person consular team into the Concepcion area of Chile to help American citizens affected by the earthquake. "As the secretary pledged ...
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 P.J. Crowley:
- The State Department has moved a five-person consular team into the Concepcion area of Chile to help American citizens affected by the earthquake. "As the secretary pledged in her meeting with President Bachelet yesterday, we stand ready to provide whatever assistance, you know, Chile needs," Crowley said.
- Crowley praised the Arab league’s announcement that they would support the American plan for indirect talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. "This is positive," he said, "As we’ve said for some time, we believe that negotiations should and ultimately will take place through a variety of channels." Special Envoy George Mitchell will return to the region soon, partly to make sure Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is on board. As for the specifics of the talks, Crowley said, "We’re not there yet. I think we’re getting close."
- Libya is demanding an apology from Crowley personally, for a recent comment where he said that he was reminded of Moammar Ghadafi’s speech at the U.N. in September, noting, "I can recall lots of words and lots of papers flying all over the place, not necessarily a lot of sense." The Libyan government reportedly summoned the U.S. charge d’affaires, Joan Polaschik, and threatened negative repercussions if the U.S. fails to apologize. "It was not intended to be a personal attack," Crowley said, not going so far as to actually apologize.
- No confirmation that Japan’s behind the scenes power broker Ichiro Ozawa will come to Washington soon and perhaps even meet with President Obama.
- Crowley defended U.S. anti-narcotic policy in Afghanistan, following the criticisms of Victor Ivanov, Russia’s drug czar. "We’re not ignoring it. We are actually attacking it aggressively. But now we’re doing it through a different kind of strategy where we can be seen as supporting the Afghan people as opposed to being seen as attacking, you know, the livelihood that they have relied on in recent years or recent decades," he said.
- Confirmed that "inquiries have been made" for a visa for North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye Guan to visit the U.S., but the State Department hasn’t made any decisions yet. That didn’t stop the South Korean foreign minister from announcing that he was on the way to DC in early March.
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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