Briefing Skipper: Abbas, Iran, Mexico, BP, Flyers
In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. These are the highlights of Thursday’s briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finished off her Latin America tour in Barbados, where she met with officials and talked about the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, health ...
In which we scour the transcript of the State Department’s daily presser so you don’t have to. These are the highlights of Thursday’s briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley:
- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finished off her Latin America tour in Barbados, where she met with officials and talked about the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, health issues including PEPFAR, energy, climate change. Friday she’s meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the morning and Jordanian King Abdullah in the afternoon.
- Brazil has told the U.S. it will carry out its obligations under the new UN Security Council Resolution on Iran but Turkey hasn’t said any such thing. "We expect all UN members to carry out the will of the United Nations and Resolution 1929," Crowley said, adding he hadn’t heard that Turkey wouldn’t carry its obligations.
- Robert J. Einhorn, special advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, you know, will now serve as the U.S. coordinator for the implementation of sanctions related to Iran. Crowley acknowledged that the planned Russian sale of S-300 missiles is not covered, but pointed out that they haven’t yet been delivered. "Russia has exercised responsibility and restraint, and has not, at this point, delivered those missiles to Iran," he said.
- As for the overall criticism that the sanction are weak, Crowley said they want to see the effects "over time" and tried to explain the logic behind the narrow focus. "It was not our intent to shut down Iran. It was our intent to change Iranian policy and change Iranian behavior," he said, "While applying pressure on the Iranian government with the hope that it will come back to the table to negotiate in good faith, we don’t want to add to the misery of the Iranian people."
- Crowley rejected the speculation that U.S. government criticism of BP due to the oil spill was a problem in U.S.-UK relations. "BP is a private company, and this is about the impact of a tragedy in terms of the explosion of the oil platform and the resulting oil spill, and this is not about relations between the United States and its closest ally," he said, "It is not going to affect our relationship between the United States and Britain."
- Mexico sent a formal note to the State Department expressing concern over the border shooting of a 15 year old, a video of which has now surfaced. "We, like Mexico, absolutely regret the loss of life. And it asked for a transparent investigation. That’s exactly what we plan to do," Crowley said, adding the investigation would be led by the FBI.
- In Pakistan, the U.S.-Pakistani defense working group met today. It’s co-chaired by Lieutenant General Athar Ali, Pakistan’s secretary of defense, David Ochmanek, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Force Development, and David Sedney, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.
- Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake will travel to Turkmenistan on June 14 through 16 and Uzbekistan June 17 and 18. "He will lead a large official delegation to the first bilateral consultations with the government of Turkmenistan," Crowley said. Assistant Secretary Mike Posner and Kurt Donnelly, director of Central Asia for the National Security Council, will join him.
- Crowley offered condolences to Mark Toner, a noble fan of the Philadelphia Flyers, who came two games short of winning the Stanley Cup Finals this week.
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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