Pre-Vacation Briefing Skipper: IAEA, Finland, SCUDs, Bishtek, China

Your humble Cable guy is taking some time off, heading to the Pacific Northwest to get some well-earned rest and relaxation. I’ll be back late next week, but in the meantime FP managing editor Blake Hounshell will be manning the store, and if the scoops find me in Seattle, I’ll file stories from there as well.

So here’s the last skipper for a little while, in which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. These are the highlights of Wednesday’s briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley:

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Wednesday with IAEA Director-General Yukio Amano, who was in town for the Nuclear Security Summit, preparing for the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty review conference at the UN in New York next month.
• Clinton met Wednesday with Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, the minister of International Relations and Cooperation from South Africa, and they signed a memorandum of understanding that lays out the new U.S.-South Africa strategic dialogue.
• Next week, Clinton will travel to Finland and Estonia. In Estonia, she will participate in the NATO informal foreign ministerial on April 22 and 23, Crowley said.
• Deputy Secretary Jack Lew is in Afghanistan and visited Marja yesterday, along with Ambassador Karl Eikenberry. USAID administrator Rajiv Shah is also in the region.
• State Department is "concerned" about reports that Syria is sending Scud missiles into Lebanon. "We’ve raised the issue with the Syrian government and continue to study the issue," Crowley said, "Regardless of the issue of Scuds, we remain concerned about the provision of increasingly sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah."
• Assistant Secretary Bob Blake is in Bishkek today and tomorrow. He met with Roza Otunbayeva, who Crowley called the "chairperson of the interim government." Blake said in a press conference there, "I feel optimistic about the steps that the provisional government already has taken and we look forward to helping to support that process as it moves forward."
• "We’re not taking sides," Crowley said. "It sounds like you are," responded a press corps member with a grasp for the obvious. Crowley said the Manas airbase agreement is safe until July 2011.
• No Americans so far known to be killed or injured in the earthquake that hit China’s Qinghai province. "Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have been injured and displaced and all the people of China on this difficult day," Crowley said, "And we stand ready to assist China with any needs that it might have."