Briefing Skipper: Iran, Steinberg, Israel, USAID, North Korea

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 Mark Toner:

• Undersecretary for Political Affairs Bill Burns is leading the U.S. delegation to the P5+1 talks with Iran regarding its nuclear program that begin in Istanbul Friday. Toner set the expectations bar low. "You know, these are small, incremental steps," he said. "We’re not expecting any big breakthroughs, but we want to see a constructive process emerge that leads to Iran engaging with the international community in a credible process and engaging and addressing the international community’s concerns about its nuclear program." What about the TRR deal? "We believe that, obviously… it would have to be some kind of updated arrangement. But we’re willing to discuss that in greater detail," Toner said.
•  Deputy Secretary Jim Steinberg will travel to Asia and Africa January 23-February 5. He’ll be in Seoul Jan. 26, Tokyo Jan. 27, Beijing Jan. 28, the Maldives Jan. 29, Ethiopia Jan. 30 and 31 for the African Union Summit, then off to Djibouti Feb. 1, Sudan Feb. 2, Kenya Feb. 3, Uganda Feb. 4, and Ghana Feb. 5.
• Michael Posner, assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights and labor, will visit Afghanistan and Pakistan this week. "In both countries the he will meet with government officials and non-governmental organization representatives to discuss the importance of civil society, women’s rights, the role of independent media, protection of ethnic and religious minorities, and labor rights," the State Department said.
• David Hale, deputy to Middle East Special Envoy George Mitchell, was in Jerusalem Thursday to meet with representatives of the Quartet to prepare for a principals level meeting that will happen Feb. 5 in Munich, Germany. Hale met with Israeli negotiator Yitzhak Molcho, following up on last week’s discussions at the State Department, and he’ll meet Saturday with Saeb Erekat in Amman and also plans to meet with Egyptian and Jordanian leaders.
• Toner said the State department was aware of the letter from foreign policy experts and former officials calling on the Obama administration not to veto a Palestinian sponsored U.N. resolution criticizing Israeli settlement policy. But Toner notably did not say the U.S. would veto said resolution. "I’m not going to speculate on how we might vote, but we’ve made very clear both our policy on settlements as well as our belief that action in the United Nations or any other forum is not particularly helpful," he said.
• Toner touted a major speech yesterday by USAID administrator Rajiv Shah, where Shah "outlined his approach to development, stating he is seeking to build a modern development enterprise that will focus on six core areas of USAID’s work; namely, food security, global health, disaster and crisis response, economic growth, and democracy and governance," Toner said. "The speech also launched the agency’s new policy for evaluation. It’s a concrete sign of USAID’s renewed emphasis on evaluation, measuring and documenting program achievements and shortcomings as well as generating data on what works, to drive decision-making."
• USAID has also launched its 50^th Anniversary micro site, "which is dedicated to celebrating USAID’s 50 years of progress and the visionaries whose spirit of innovation has improved millions of lives in the developing world," Toner said.
• State is not popping the champagne just yet over the news that North and South Korea might be headed back into direct dialogue. "This kind of positive dialogue is a good step. And we’ve seen some positive signs, communications from North Korea. We want to see those followed up with more concrete actions," Toner said. "We still believe that North Korea has a ways to go before we can engage in meaningful six-party talks. As we’ve said all along, we don’t want to just talk for talk’s sake."