Robert Wood

Deputy Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

1:10 p.m. EST

MR. WOOD: Good afternoon, and happy Friday to all. Lach, it’s good to see you.

QUESTION: Yeah, good to see you at the podium.

MR. WOOD: Oh, well, I don’t know about that. I’ve got a couple of items I want to start off with and then I’ll take your questions. The first is to give you an update on the P-5+1 meeting that took place in Brussels this morning. The ministers of the United Kingdom, China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.S., and the EU high representative met, as I think many of you know, in New York on September 23. They agreed that, quote, “The meeting on October 1 will provide an opportunity to seek a comprehensive, long-term, and appropriate solution to the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiation. We expect a serious response from Iran and we’ll decide, in the context of our dual-track approach as a result of the meeting, on our next steps,” unquote.

Today, the political directors of these countries met in Brussels to take stock of developments since the October 1 meeting in Geneva. We are disappointed by the lack of follow-up to the three understandings reached in Geneva at the Geneva meeting between High Representative Solana and Dr. Jalili. Although the IAEA has visited the Qom’s enrichment facility, we noted the IAEA director general’s assessment that Iran should have declared to the agency the construction of this facility much earlier and has, therefore, not complied with its safeguard obligations. In addition, the construction of a new enrichment facility is in defiance of several UN Security Council resolutions. The IAEA board will have to address this issue next week.

Iran has not engaged in an intensified dialogue and, in particular, has refused to have a new meeting before the end of October to discuss nuclear issues. Iran has not responded positively to the IAEA proposed agreement for the provision of nuclear fuel for its Tehran research reactor.

We urge Iran to reconsider the opportunity offered by this agreement, to meet the humanitarian needs of its people, and to engage seriously with us in a dialogue and negotiations. This remains our consistent objective. We have agreed that a new meeting will take place shortly in order to complete our assessment of the situation and to decide about next steps in the context of our dual-track approach.

Last item – bear with me a bit. This has to do with a vote that was taken earlier today with regard to Iran’s human rights violations. This was in the UN.

The United States welcomes the resolution passed today by the United Nations calling upon the Government of Iran to respect its human rights obligations fully. In addition, to longstanding concerns about the human rights situation in Iran, the resolution expresses deep concern about the brutal response of Iranian authorities to peaceful demonstrations in the wake of the June 12 election. It calls on the Government of Iran to abolish torture and arbitrary imprisonment, as well as any executions, including stoning, carried out without due process of law. The resolution also calls on Iran to cooperate fully with and admit entry to the UN Special Rapporteur on torture or other cruel, inhumane – excuse me – inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance.

We’ll issue the full statement after the briefing. I just want to point out this is the largest vote margin on such a resolution on Iran in the UN ever. Over 60 percent of those members voted in support.

And with that, I will take – happily take your questions.

QUESTION: Robert, on the P-5+1 statement. It said that they took stock of recent events and that the next meeting would be about next steps. Was there no discussion of the way ahead at this meeting today?

MR. WOOD: Well, I think at this meeting today what the political directors wanted to do was to take a look at Iran’s responses, or lack thereof, to a number of calls by the international community. And I think what was certainly agreed on was that we needed to have a follow-up meeting and to talk about next steps – all part of the dual-track approach that, as you know, we have taken from the beginning. So this next meeting that will take place, will obviously take a closer look at what measures we may need to take with regard to Iran.

But again, we continue to call on Iran to accept this proposal with regard to the Tehran research reactor. We think it’s a good one. We think it’s a great way for Iran to show, if indeed its intentions are peaceful, that they want to cooperate with the international community with regard to its nuclear program. So we’ll just have to see.

But no, the date – there’s been no date scheduled for the next meeting. But --

QUESTION: And the fact that you would wait to another meeting to discuss next steps would indicate you still think that the Iranians may change their mind and --

MR. WOOD: Well, we’re certainly hopeful that they will change their mind. We think – as I said, this is something that the Iranians agreed to in principle. If you remember back at the Geneva meeting, they agreed in principle to this proposal that was brought about under the auspices of the IAEA. And since then, Iran has had a difficult time saying yes to this proposal. So we’re hopeful that Iran will, but should it not, we will obviously take a look at the pressure side of our dual-track approach.

Let me go to Jill --

QUESTION: Robert, I just wanted to clarify then --

MR. WOOD: Yeah.

QUESTION: So on the two issues, you’ve got visiting Qom and you said they should have disclosed earlier.

MR. WOOD: That’s right.

QUESTION: And so the problem here is their decision not to ship out that nuclear fuel. Is that correct?

MR. WOOD: The problem here is that Iran has not responded positively to the proposal. I don’t want to get into the details of the proposal. I think most of you know what was included in the proposal. And what we’re saying to Iran is that it needs to take this offer. It committed to doing so – taking up the proposal – and we think it’s a great confidence-building measure for the international community. I don’t know why Iran hasn’t been able to say yes, up until now. It could have to do with internal political – the internal political situation of Iran, but it’s really hard to say. But we think this is a real good way forward, and Iran needs to take it up.

QUESTION: But it sounds like this is a very serious moment then, because you were saying one more meeting, that’s it.

MR. WOOD: No, I didn’t say that at all. I didn’t mean to say that that was it. I said at the next meeting we would take a look at – based on Iran’s response, up until that – at that time, or lack thereof, and take a look and see what new measures we may have to take. But I’m not saying that the next meeting is it – that’s it and then we start moving to the pressure track.

QUESTION: Then why stretch it out? I mean, isn’t it quite clear that they’re not going to do this?

MR. WOOD: Look, we are – we have said from the beginning, we’re willing to go the extra mile with regard to diplomacy. The President and the Secretary have been very clear about that. Iran has had plenty of time to consider this proposal. We still hope that they will reconsider and give the IAEA Director General a yes. But that’s up to Iran. But again, as I said earlier, Jill, we’ve – our approach has been one of two tracks. And at the next meeting we will take a look again at where things are, and then discuss the way forward.

QUESTION: Will the next meeting be weeks or months?

MR. WOOD: I don’t know yet. I don’t suspect it’ll be months, but I don’t know at this point.

QUESTION: And will it be at the political directors level or –

MR. WOOD: Don’t know. At this point, I would assume it would be, but that – there could be a decision taken later that it would be at another level. But at this point, I would assume it’s political directors.

QUESTION: On the second track, which presumably might involve sanctions, is there confidence now that the P-5+1 are agreed that that is one route that we might have to take that sanctions should be discussed as a potential next step?

MR. WOOD: Well, the issue of sanctions has been discussed before. This is certainly not new. We’ve said that we want to leave a – there’s a window of opportunity for Iran. That window is not going to be open forever. And if it doesn’t respond to the calls of the international community for it to live up to its international obligations, then we will have to look at the pressure track. But I don’t want to get a head of where we might go on that. But it’s very clear, the international community has said to Iran that if you’re willing to take important confidence-building measures, such as the Tehran research reactor proposal, that it is possible that we can move toward a better relationship, but Iran has yet to make that decision.

Yes, Lach.

QUESTION: Can you conclude that the Iranians are stringing you along and just buying time in this?

MR. WOOD: I can’t tell you what they are trying to do. But as I said, I think the international community’s patience is limited. And we’re saying to Iran, we’re reaching out our hand, we want to work with you on addressing the concerns that the international community has about your nuclear activities. We – again, this Tehran research reactor proposal is a good one. It can go a long way in addressing a number of the concerns that the international community has – not all of them – but it certainly would be an important confidence-building measure. So it’s really going to be up to Tehran.

QUESTION: Robert, just another clarification. Legally, officially, has Iran actually said we are not going to do this? There’s been so much back and forth – maybe we will, maybe we won’t – I don’t – what is the official version from the government, if there is one?

MR. WOOD: Well, as far as I know, Iran hasn’t responded formally to this proposal, but we’ve heard a lot of soundings from Iran. Ian addressed those yesterday. And we just hope that Iran will give a yes – a positive answer to this proposal. But that’s the best I can help you on that.

QUESTION: Is China and Russia on the same page? And are they ready to discuss measures, new measures against Iran or new sanctions?

MR. WOOD: Well, I certainly don’t want to speak for either government, but I can tell you that the P-5+1 has been of one mind on the need to approach Iran’s nuclear program through a two-track approach. And both countries, like the other members of the P-5+1, agree that we have concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities. Iran needs to address them. We all believe that Iran having a nuclear weapons capability is not a good thing. And so, in that particular – in that way, yes, the EU-5 – excuse me – the P-5+1 is in agreement that Iran needs to live up to its obligations.

QUESTION: But (inaudible) China or France or Russia? Even they have their economic and their political issues or their concern or they are with Iran on those issues?

MR. WOOD: I'm sorry, Goyal.

QUESTION: As far as economic and political concerns are there between those countries, especially economic, Russia, China and France.

MR. WOOD: Well, I can’t speak for what their concerns are, except to say that they have been – they’ve made it very clear that Iran’s nuclear program is of concern, and that Iran needs to address those concerns, and that having a – Iran having a nuclear weapon is just not in the best interest of the international community.

QUESTION: Another clarification.

MR. WOOD: Okay.

QUESTION: How far along are you – is the United States with its allies in determining specifically what kind of sanctions you would use if this comes to what it looks like it’s moving toward?

MR. WOOD: Well, Jill, as you can imagine, I’m not going to get into details of what types of measures we might take with regard to the pressure track. Again, what I would say from here is that Iran needs to take up this offer; that the IAEA and the United States, Russia, France worked on. Iran needs to take it up. It’s a good deal for Iran’s people. It’s a good deal for addressing confidence of the international community. And I don’t know what more to say about it, except that Iran needs to respond.

QUESTION: Well, then can you at least tell us do you have a packet of sanctions ready to go and defined at this stage? Or is it that the United States has a packet ready to go and must sell it to its allies?

MR. WOOD: Well, Jill, I don’t – as I said, I don’t want to get into a discussion of what measures we may or may not be thinking about. I think, as I said at the beginning, we have been committed to this dual-track approach. We call on Iran to address the issues that are outstanding. Should Iran not do that, then we will have to look at other measures, but I really don’t want to get into what those measures may or may not be.

QUESTION: Does there ever come a point when it becomes too late for Iran to respond? What – I mean, I realize that you don’t want to sort of draw down an official deadline, but there must be some stage of this process where an Iranian response, yes or no, is going to be too late; you’re already going to be on – entrained for doing something else.

MR. WOOD: Well, as I said earlier, this window is not going to be open forever. We’re not at that point yet, but we will certainly let you know when – if and when we reach that point.

QUESTION: But Robert, as far as sanctions are concerned, go back anywhere, really even 10 year, 15, 20 years – has they worked – any one country – any country around the globe, including Burma – any country you take actions – sanctions now? I have not seen actually, but we keep talking about sanctions – new sanctions, more sanctions?

MR. WOOD: Well, as I’ve said many times from here and others have as well, you cannot really compare the two situations anywhere. Sanctions have been used in the past as a tool to try to influence a country’s behavior, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea to compare them. And again, Iran knows what it needs to do and we continue – we and others continue to call on Iran to accept this proposal that they agreed to in principle.

Charlie.

QUESTION: Since we’ve settled that, can we move on to Honduras?

QUESTION: One question more about Iran. Do you --

QUESTION: Well, we had settled – sorry.

QUESTION: Do you expect that this is going to generate more tensions in the Middle East? How the U.S. is going to address the new tensions that this kind of statement is coming to the Middle East, especially for Israel or other countries are also --

MR. WOOD: Well --

QUESTION: -- very worried about this.

MR. WOOD: Well, I think Iran’s noncompliance has raised tensions in the region. There’s no question about it. There are lots of concerns not only in the neighborhood, but throughout the international community about Iran’s activities. Iran needs to comply with its obligations, and that – once Iran does that, if and when Iran does that, it will help reduce tensions. But to date, Iran hasn’t decided to do that.

Charlie, you wanted to go to something else – on this, Dave?

QUESTION: Yeah, just an ancillary question --

MR. WOOD: Sure.

QUESTION: Ahmadinejad is going to be visiting Brazil in a couple of days. Is the fact that a friendly government like that welcoming Ahmadinejad – does that tend to dilute international solidarity on the nuclear issue?

MR. WOOD: Well, President Ahmadinejad going to Brazil, that’s an issue between the Government of Brazil and the Government of Iran. What we would hope is that the Government of Brazil would raise some of these concerns that we have, many of which I’ve just laid out here, about Iran in those meetings. But beyond that, I don’t have anything to add to that.

Charlie.

QUESTION: Yes, on Honduras, you want to bring us up to date on the latest developments and whether or not you think Mr. Zelaya might return to the – any kind of power before the election?

MR. WOOD: Well, as I think many of you are aware, there was a statement made last night by Mr. Micheletti about taking a leave of absence. And we welcome that he is going to take a leave of absence and expect its prompt implementation. This will allow some breathing space for the process in Honduras to go forward. And so the announcement will also allow for the people of Honduras to focus on the elections. And so that’s really where we are.

QUESTION: When you say you welcome, what do you mean by you welcome? Means that you are happy or – that he’s taking a leave of absence?

MR. WOOD: I mean we welcome.

Yes.

QUESTION: (Inaudible), right?

MR. WOOD: Anything else on Honduras?

QUESTION: Yeah.

MR. WOOD: Dave --

QUESTION: I mean, as far as you’re concerned, this is – is this a good solution now? I mean, no longer does the United States expect Zelaya to come back or --

MR. WOOD: Well, I think what would be a good solution for the situation, the crisis in Honduras, is for the implementation of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accords. That, I think, is what needs to happen now. And the sooner that we can get that implementation, the sooner we will get to what we hope will be a resolution to this crisis.

Jill, you had --

QUESTION: And who runs the country while Mr. Micheletti is on vacation?

MR. WOOD: That’s a good question. I don’t really know the answer to that. I’m sure there is one and I’ll try and get one.

QUESTION: Zelaya said that he wants to delay the elections. He says that in this situation, the elections cannot be take – cannot be done.

MR. WOOD: Well, there is an accord that President Zelaya and his team and Mr. Micheletti and his team agreed to. And we think if we are going to address the issues of restoring democracy, if we’re going to deal with the the question of reconciliation, that the best way to do this is to move forward with the implementation of the accord. It’s in the best interests of the Honduran people. The Honduran people want to end this crisis. And as we’ve said, one of the most important things that needs to happen first is the formation of this national unity government. And we want to see that happen as soon as possible.

On Honduras?

QUESTION: No.

MR. WOOD: Okay.

QUESTION: A different issue.

MR. WOOD: Okay.

QUESTION: Two quick questions on India into one, actually. As far as the joint statement was concerned in China, between U.S. and China, and there is still theories going on around India because of what the joint statement was saying, that China should play a major role in South Asia. What they are saying is that China has no rule of law, no human rights, no democracy, and India is world’s largest democracy, two major powers in the region are rising. And how can China play such a role with millions of people are under communist rule and they have no respect for any human being over there or supporting even around the globe, many terrorist activities?

Now, second, this is now on the eve of prime minister of India’s visit to Washington on Tuesday – and second, Carnegie International is calling on the United States that China has called for the U.S. to support a major, I mean, permanent UN Security Council seat for India.

MR. WOOD: Well, to go to the first part of your question, I mean, India and China are two rising powers, very important players on the global scene. And China – as we have said, there are issues of concern that we have with the Chinese. We’ve raised them when appropriate, and at all levels of our interaction. Hopefully, China will move in the direction that we’d like to see it go. It’s an important nation, and India and China are – they’re going to be countries that we deal very closely with in the coming years. And I don’t know what more to say about it. I mean, they’re key, and our relationships with both are growing.

Do we have concerns with both? Of course. I’m sure – and both have concerns with us, and that’s why we need to work closely. We have intensive dialogues with both countries. And I think both countries also realize the importance of the Indo-Sino relationship, and to work toward improving that not only for regional stability, but for global stability as well.

And the second part of your question with regard to – please refresh my memory, because I wasn’t --

QUESTION: Carnegie International is calling the U.S. for permanent UN Security seat for India.

MR. WOOD: Yeah. I mean, that’s something that – the whole question of Security Council expansion is one that the UN’s been dealing with for quite some time, and we’ll just have to see how that goes.

QUESTION: You think there will be an announcement during prime minister of India’s visit in the White House about this?

MR. WOOD: Well, I don’t know about any announcement about that, but I certainly – if I had an announcement before the visit, I wouldn’t want to make it here.

QUESTION: How about a specific bilateral issue with India? The civil-nuclear cooperation deal was hailed as the big, great triumph of U.S.-Indian relations last year, but it still remains unimplemented, and one reason for that is the lack of a reprocessing agreement between the United States and India. I understand there have been talks about that. Is there any – where do we stand with the reprocessing agreement? Who is it who would make that decision ultimately? And is that something that we might expect during the prime minister’s visit?

MR. WOOD: Well, there are a number of players involved in dealing with that question that you just raised. And we’ve said from the beginning that agreement is a good agreement and brings India into the nonproliferation mainstream. There are folks working on it. I’ll see if we have anything that we can --

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. WOOD: -- give you an update on.

QUESTION: Great, thanks.

MR. WOOD: Yes.

QUESTION: A different topic – on Afghanistan?

MR. WOOD: Sure.

QUESTION: Yeah, I wanted to ask about the raid today on the village of Hyderabad by Afghan and NATO forces. There were lots of angry villagers out all over TV screens screaming that the ISAF forces were killing innocent people. And I just wondered, as the Administration’s policy formulates, what is going to be done to placate those villagers and make them realize that these raids are important? Or are they important?

MR. WOOD: Well, let me just say as a general principle one of our concerns – and I think General McChrystal has made this very clear – is that we want to focus more on protecting civilian populations. That’s critical. Winning over the populous in Afghanistan is something – it’s a must. There is – it’s a very dangerous security environment. There’s no question about it. I mean, you’ve heard many people speaking from here, you’ve heard the Secretary, you’ve heard the President speaking about what our objectives are in Afghanistan. And we think it’s important that the Taliban and al-Qaida be defeated. Those two groups, networks, are a major threat to the security, safety, and well-being of the Afghan people.

What we’re – we realize that it’s going to be a difficult challenge for the Afghan Government to deal with the security issues, and we’re going to – we’re a partner, we’re going to work closely with them to try to do that. But we certainly recognize that it’s important to make sure that the civilian population is protected, but at the same time, we’ve got to make sure – and President Karzai has spoken to this very clearly – that we counter this violent extremism as best we can, because that’s a major cancer in Afghan society. And so we will be continuing to pursue our efforts along with our partners in ISAF and with our Afghan partner, but also at the same time, do our best to try to bring some stability and peace to Afghanistan, which it so desperately needs.

QUESTION: These villagers would clearly disagree with that. They would say that there was a raid, nobody told us what was going on --

MR. WOOD: Well --

QUESTION: -- and these were our friends.

MR. WOOD: I’d have to refer you to ISAF for that because I’m not aware of that specific incident. But I was just trying to give you a general statement of policy.

QUESTION: Robert?

MR. WOOD: Yes.

QUESTION: There is an internal crisis in this moment in Spain based on a situation that we don’t address much here – is the piracy in Somalia, and the Spanish Government was involved with some of their forces and they – finally, this boat paid $4 million to be rescued to the piracies – to the pirates in Somalia. I want to know if there are specific actions with the U.S., the State Department and other countries to try to improve the situation there in Somalia?

MR. WOOD: Well, I think you know very well we’ve been working in the UN to try to come up with an appropriate framework for dealing with acts of piracy. With regard to the Spanish Government’s policies, I have to refer you to them, but --

QUESTION: No, there’s an internal crisis between their position and the government because of what happened there.

MR. WOOD: Well, again, I don’t want to get involved in internal Spanish politics. I can just tell you that Spain is an important partner, as well as a number of other countries, in terms of trying to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia. It’s – this is kind of a new issue that we’ve been dealing with intensively of late, but there’s a lot – there’s good cooperation in the international community in trying to counter piracy. And we’ll continue to work on this issue because it – piracy has to be stamped out.

Somalia, as you know, has been without – the transitional government there has had some real difficulties. And the instability in Somalia, I think, is breeding a lot of the acts of piracy. And so we’re going to redouble our efforts in the international community to try to --

QUESTION: Do you expect there’s going to be a meeting or an encounter in Africa to review this situation?

MR. WOOD: Oh, the --

QUESTION: It’s not going to help maybe these communities or something because they are attacking all these ships in that region.

MR. WOOD: Well, I don’t know if there is a plan for an upcoming meeting or anything like that. There could very well be at some point. But there are a lot of consultations and meetings going on to deal with the whole piracy question. So the international community is focused on this right now; we’re just trying to come up with a framework, good measures to take in order to try to eliminate it. But this goes all the way back to the days of Thomas Jefferson and the issue of piracy, so --

QUESTION: One of – the money was used, and one – some part of the money was divided in some groups, and one couple married using this money. That’s what the news are saying. (Laughter.)

MR. WOOD: I don’t know anything about that.

QUESTION: Are you working at the United Nations level?

MR. WOOD: On the issue of piracy?

QUESTION: On this, yeah, yes.

MR. WOOD: Yeah, absolutely.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. WOOD: Yes, Jill.

QUESTION: Robert, just on – one thing Andy was mentioning about this civil-nuclear cooperation deal, if I understood you correctly right at the end, you said it brought – it brings them into the nonproliferation mainstream; is that what you said?

MR. WOOD: Yes.

QUESTION: I mean, there are many people who would argue completely from the opposite viewpoint, that it gives them a free pass.

MR. WOOD: Oh, I know. There are a number of –

QUESTION: So I know we’ll get into this next week because he will be here on Tuesday. But just as a general statement in principle, how do you make that argument? I mean, why – what do you say to the people who say that they did get a free pass, that they’re very much not part of the mainstream?

MR. WOOD: Well, for one, India is a responsible player on the global scene, and that’s something that one cannot deny. India feels very strongly about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It’s cooperative with us in a number of fora. I think if you go back and you look at what we said at the time that the agreement was finally signed, that this was a good thing. And it will help us in our efforts to try to stem the scourge of nonproliferation and --

Yeah, go ahead.

QUESTION: Why are they an exception to everybody else?

MR. WOOD: Well, it’s – look, I don’t know who everybody else is we’re talking about. I can just –

QUESTION: Any other country that has any nuclear material.

MR. WOOD: Well, I can just – again, Jill, reiterate that we think that this agreement is a good one. We think it will contribute to our nonproliferation efforts around the world. And that’s the best I can do for you at this point.

Yes, sir.

QUESTION: A Japanese engineer has been abducted in Yemen by an armed group which has demanded the release of jailed family member who may be part of al-Qaida. I have two questions. Has State Department consulted with the Yemeni Government regarding this issue? And how do you see the risks of releasing this prisoner?

MR. WOOD: Well, I’m not familiar with this case. We obviously would condemn anyone who has been taken hostage. But I’d just have to refer you to the Japanese and Yemeni Governments on this. I just haven’t heard about this case.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. WOOD: Thank you.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:40 p.m.)

Ian Kelly

Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

1:36 p.m. EST

MR. KELLY: Okay. Good afternoon. The Secretary had a full day in Kabul today. She met with, of course, the Afghan leadership, with international partners and allies. She had breakfast with foreign ministers, met with U.S. and international troops and staff from Provincial Reconstruction Teams, and also, of course, with Embassy staff.

She noted in her public comments that she was encouraged by President Karzai’s pledge in his inaugural speech to battle corruption and get his security forces sufficiently trained to take the lead in the country within five years. She also noted that President Karzai’s speech set forth an agenda for change and reform and that he outlined steps for tackling corruption.

She added that the U.S. is under no illusions about the difficulty of its mission in Afghanistan, that the road ahead is fraught with challenges and imperfect choices, and said that setbacks are inevitable and that, of course, we must remain realistic about what can be accomplished.

QUESTION: That’s real optimism.

MR. KELLY: She also said we’re starting to see results in areas like alternatives to poppy cultivation, opening of girls’ schools, opening of clinics, and better roads, and said that the international community can do better, and vowed more transparency in our aid. And she stressed that, while there are – there will be setbacks, she believes we can make progress.

So with that, I will take your questions. Mr. Lee gets the first question.

QUESTION: Are you going to announce Bosworth’s travel, since it seems to be --

MR. KELLY: I think it’s been announced.

QUESTION: Yeah, it has.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: One wonders why it wasn’t announced yesterday from here.

MR. KELLY: One wonders. Well, I think it may have something to do with the fact that the President announced it a few hours after that.

QUESTION: Yes, his big news sending the envoy to North Korea. What are the details of this?

MR. KELLY: He is – he’s going on December – he will be there on December 8^th with a small interagency delegation to engage in direct talks with North Korean officials. And our goal here is, of course, the resumption of the Six-Party Talks and to secure North Korea’s reaffirmation of the September 2005 joint agreement.

And as you know, we made this decision after consulting with our partners in South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia. And Ambassador Bosworth plans to continue on after Pyongyang to the capitals of our partners in these Six-Party Talks to give them a readout of his talks with North Korean officials.

QUESTION: Including Moscow?

MR. KELLY: Including Moscow.

QUESTION: Do you have dates for those?

MR. KELLY: I don’t have an exact schedule for you beyond the fact that he’s going to be in Pyongyang on December 8^th.

QUESTION: Are you under any illusions that the North Koreans will come back willingly?

MR. KELLY: Well, it’s pretty fair to say that we – we’re going to go into this with our eyes wide open. We are not interested in being distracted by issues beyond the issues – the most important issues facing the region in terms of security, and that’s the complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. So that will be the focus of our – of Ambassador Bosworth’s trip to Pyongyang.

Within the context of the Six-Party Talks, there’s – there is an opportunity to have working groups around the Six-Party Talks about bilateral issues. We’re not interested in those kinds of issues in this – in these direct talks that we’re going to have in Pyongyang.

Yes.

QUESTION: Whom is he going to meet in Pyongyang? Is it Kang Suk-ju, or do you know?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. I don’t – I’m not prepared to announce exactly who it’s going to be. But I understand it’s going to be an appropriate, really senior level for Ambassador Bosworth to have these discussions that I just described.

Yes.

QUESTION: Nazira Karimi for Ariana Television. As you mentioned, President Karzai at his inauguration today, he has pledged too many things, and he mentioned about fighting against corruption. Do you think that he going to be able to deliver it? And also, of course, he has an expectation from the U.S. authority and also international community.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: What do you think about U.S. position or role about this?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think the important thing is – is that he made a real commitment in the speech to tackle these issues. And they’ve already taken some steps to try and institutionalize the fight against corruption. And so we see it – we saw that speech as something hopeful in terms of setting out a new way forward for the new government. But as they do go forward, we’ll be looking to see the government actually implement and follow through on some of these steps that he outlined.

I think that for our part, we also see this as a new opportunity for our partnership with Afghanistan. And on our side, we also want to ensure that there is transparency and accountability for the assistance that we’re providing. And we have – we’ve set up some, on our own end, some of our own monitoring and verification mechanisms to ensure that our aid is meeting – is going to the right people, is meeting our goals for Afghanistan. And so we have a very robust monitoring procedure in place. We’re conducting a review of all the recipients on the side of the Afghan Government for our aid to ensure that they’re using the aid in the proper way. And if these agencies and ministries don’t – if we’re not able to certify them as having open and accountable procedures, they simply won’t receive the direct aid.

So this really is kind of a new chapter in our relationship and a renewed partnership. But it’s a partnership with mutual responsibilities. President Karzai recognized that they have their own responsibilities to be open and transparent, and we recognize that we have our own responsibilities to our own taxpayers, to our own people, but also to U.S. national interests to ensure that this is – that our aid program meets our goals.

QUESTION: How about the new cabinet? U.S. will have a special opinion – they don’t want to interfere about the people who will be in the future government of President Karzai?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think that the next step here is for the president to present his slate of ministers to the lower house. So there is a mechanism in place in Kabul for a kind of – I guess we’d call it a confirmation process. It’s not really a confirmation process, but they need – the slate of ministers needs to be approved. And I expect that will happen over the next few weeks. But I think the key here is that our assistance really is performance-based. And that’s not just us. That’s also – that’s a pledge that President Karzai made as well, and it’s a pledge that we make to our taxpayers too, that our aid has to be delivered in an open and transparent and accountable fashion.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Even after Karzai made these promises today, and we’re on the verge of making decisions on whether or not we’re going to be sending or how many troops we’ll be sending, the Germans came out today – the German defense minister came out today and said that they did not want to send more troops. They’re our third-largest partner in Afghanistan. What’s your reaction to that?

MR. KELLY: Well, I mean, Germany is an important partner, and they have a very comprehensive approach to assisting in Afghanistan, both in terms of aiding in their security needs but also aiding in their developmental needs. And I think that every country has to decide what’s in their own national interests how they can best help in this effort. I haven’t actually seen these remarks, in particular. But as you point out, they are the third-largest contributor, and we’ve been very appreciative of their assistance

QUESTION: Same subject.

MR. KELLY: Same subject?

QUESTION: Yes. This monitoring and verification mechanism is already in place. Is it effective now?

MR. KELLY: On our side, you mean?

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. KELLY: Yes, it is. I mean, we have a special inspector general in place, the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction. That office has been in place for quite some time. We’re in the process of going ministry by ministry to certify that they have the proper accounting procedures in place to receive aid directly. This is not only to improve transparency, but it’s also to ensure they have the capacity to receive this aid. We’re also dramatically increasing the number of officers from the U.S. Agency for International Development who can get out into the field and actually see how the aid is being delivered. So we have some mechanisms already in place, but we’re also looking to increase our own capacity to monitor the aid.

QUESTION: Yeah. But as you know, the major (inaudible) of U.S. aids goes to Afghanistan through the NGO sector, nonprofit sector. Only 30 percent goes through the Afghan Government. So what’s the mechanism to verify and monitor the aid which goes through the nonprofit organizations?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think we have the same kind of monitoring structures in place for NGOs as well. I mean, we also want to make sure that they’re – they have the proper accounting procedures in place. So it’s, I think, a similar mechanism for them as well.

QUESTION: Currently, the ratio of aid going to Afghanistan to NGOs and the government is 70/30; 70 percent goes to the nonprofit and 30 percent to Afghan Government. Is there any move to change this imbalance of aid going to Afghanistan?

MR. KELLY: Well, I’m not sure whether or not it’s imbalanced. But I know that we’re looking to increase the capacity of the Afghan Government, not just in Kabul but also out in the regions as well. So I think we’ll be looking to increase that proportion going to the government, as they are able to be certified that they have the capacity and the kind of accounting mechanisms that we need to have in place to actually deliver the aid. But it’s not just – we’re not just talking about the Afghan central government here. We’re talking about also the local and provincial authorities as well.

QUESTION: So the local and provincial authorities will go directly to them or through – routed through the central government?

MR. KELLY: It’s a good question. I’m not sure exactly. I mean, I’m sure that it has to be coordinated with the central government, but I’m not sure if it actually – the money actually flows through the central government.

QUESTION: On the theme of accountability, Senator Kerry has written a letter to the IG, and copied also to the Secretary, asking for a new investigation into Blackwater --

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- given recent developments. And he says in the letter that the director of defense trade controls has told a Foreign Relations Committee staff member that Blackwater is engaged in broad violations of export laws, unlicensed shipments of weapons to Iraq, and potentially other places. Do you know: (a) If the IG is going to conduct a new investigation or at least review whether Blackwater is still appropriate – or Xe Services – sorry --

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- is still an appropriate company to get contracts under the worldwide protective services – personal protective services scheme; and (b) – well, let’s just stick it – stick with (a) for a moment.

MR. KELLY: Okay. We can get to (b), if you want, a little later. Yes, we – I mean, Matt, I’ll just confirm we received the letter today. The Office of the Inspector General has the letter, and I’m sure the Secretary will see it as soon as she gets back. These are very serious allegations. We look forward to learning more from the committee about these allegations, because I think the letter says that they have new information. And so we’re looking forward to a discussion of that, and we’re looking forward, I think, to – in general, to a discussion of the issue of contractors. I think you’ve seen the Secretary has said before that we’re concerned about our dependency on contractors.

QUESTION: Well, why is –

MR. KELLY: But at the same time, though, we’re also – we have to – we have a need to provide protection for our people overseas. So it’s a – there are these two imperatives that we need to balance out.

QUESTION: Well, (b) – then the (b) part of the question then is: You are not aware of this new information? And do you know anything about --

MR. KELLY: Well, I’m not sure what he means by new information.

QUESTION: The directorate’s acting director of compliance telling them that Blackwater engaged in broad violations of export laws; are you aware of that? It seems to me that you would be.

MR. KELLY: I think we’re – well, we’re – we’ve seen the – I mean, there have been stories in the media about this – about these allegations.

QUESTION: Forget about the – forget about stories in the media. I’m just talking about the letter from Senator Kerry, who is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, saying that the directorate’s acting director of compliance told the committee staff that Blackwater, quote, “engaged in broad violations,” end quote, of export laws. Do you know anything about that?

MR. KELLY: I don’t know that the Department of State has this information at the present time.

QUESTION: He said unlicensed shipments went beyond weapons for personal use by Blackwater Security personnel.

MR. KELLY: This sounds like something that probably --

QUESTION: All right. So you’re not --

MR. KELLY: -- should be referred you to the Department of Justice.

QUESTION: This building is not privy to the information that Senator Kerry has?

MR. KELLY: I don’t think that – well, we are not aware of the specifics of these allegations.

QUESTION: Okay. Thank you.

QUESTION: On a different subject?

MR. KELLY: Different subject? Okay.

QUESTION: Yeah, on Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi has returned a letter to the senior general Than Shwe about meeting him directly. And there are – some statements have also come from the senior general and the military junta about possibilities of releasing Aung San Suu Kyi. Do you see any development – positive development going on inside the country?

MR. KELLY: Well, we, of course, have started a new, very focused dialogue with the Government of Burma. This has been a dialogue that, as I say, is focused on the need for Burma to open up its political system to – for more debate and discussion. And the – I think the – one of the best steps that they could take to show that they are willing to open up their system is to release political prisoners. There are over 2,000 of them. And of course, we’ve called, in particular, for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. And we’re aware of this letter that she’s written to the senior general, and we hope that this will be the beginning of a dialogue that will lead to her release.

Yeah. Go ahead.

QUESTION: Any updates on that transit agreement and how the operation’s technical teams were doing?

MR. KELLY: They wrapped up today. They’re on their way back. I understand that a second flight was conducted today. It landed in Bagram. For details on that, I think you have to go to my colleagues over at the Pentagon. And we look forward to many more such flights. And we also look forward to getting a debrief from the team when they get back.

QUESTION: Are there reasons to believe then that they will start on a regular basis then?

MR. KELLY: I hope so. But like I say, we need to talk to them when they get back. I don’t have a complete readout of their trip.

Yeah.

QUESTION: On Venezuela?

MR. KELLY: On Venezuela.

QUESTION: Yeah. (inaudible) the friend of the freedom of expression, the president of Globovision Venezuela, the opposition channel, denounced yesterday that his human rights have been violated, and that could lead to an order of detention actually ordered by the president of Venezuela himself. Do you have any position, any comments on that?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think our position on freedom of the press in Venezuela has been very clear, that we call for a removal of the – of intimidation and other moves against the media there, particularly Globo. And I’m not aware of these most – more recent developments, but this is an important issue and we’ve been very forthright about our calls for more freedom of expression in Venezuela.

QUESTION: Do you have had the opportunity to speak to the government, to the Venezuelan Government, and to say what is your opinion towards --

MR. KELLY: I’m sure we have. I mean, we have an ambassador in Caracas and we have diplomatic contacts, and I’m sure we have had these kind of conversations privately as well through diplomatic channels.

Samir, you’ve got – your hand is up highest, so we’ll let you ask the next one.

QUESTION: Okay. Palestinian President Abbas told BBC today that he doesn’t want to go to the Security Council to ask for support for a declaration of a Palestinian state in a unilateral way, but he would like to ask for a resolution to reaffirm the endorsement of the Roadmap which is endorsed by Resolution 1515. Will the U.S. support this move, or do you – will you object to it?

MR. KELLY: Well, we – it’s hard for me to say if we’ll object to a move, not having seen the details of the resolution. But what you’ve just outlined to me is what we support too. We support both sides abiding by their agreements under the Roadmap. We do not support unilateral moves by one side or the other. We believe that these differences have to be worked out through bilateral dialogue.

QUESTION: But these things does not contradict U.S. policies in the past. Like Resolution 1515, the U.S. voted it, supported it.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. I’m – Samir, I’m sorry, I don’t have Resolution 1515 in front of me. If – we’ll get you – you want a very specific response to --

QUESTION: No, no, just reaction, a general reaction, because he’s calling only for reaffirmation of the Roadmap, that Resolution 1515 endorses the Roadmap at the Security Council.

MR. KELLY: Right. Yeah. Well, Samir, I can’t give you a response to some – to a resolution that I haven’t seen, to a text that we haven’t seen. Once we see the text, we’re happy to give a response to it.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Egypt has recalled its ambassador to Algeria, following incidents surrounding a soccer game between these two nations in Sudan. Do you have any comment on that?

MR. KELLY: I haven’t seen that report, so I don’t have any comment on it. Sorry, Christophe.

Yes.

QUESTION: Could I ask you about Iran? The President promised consequences when the Iranians rejected the nuclear fuel deal, and there’s a meeting tomorrow of the P-5 plus Germany in Brussels. What is the best that you can expect out of that, given that your Russian counterpart said that there are no prospects for new sanctions? Are you just going to be satisfied with adding names to asset freezes and travel bans?

MR. KELLY: Well, first of all, let’s talk for a minute about what’s going to happen tomorrow. There is going to be a meeting that’s been called by Javier Solana of the political directors of the P-5+1, political directors or their representatives. And I think that they’re going to basically talk about three or four things.

One is, of course, that Iran, as the President said, is having trouble getting to yes on the proposal that the IAEA has put forward on sending their low-enriched uranium out of the country, so they’re going to discuss responses to that. They have also not been responsive to the invitation of the P-5+1 itself to sit down again and talk about the nuclear issue. They’re going to discuss the recent IAEA report of noncompliance and the ramifications of that and what can be expected in the meeting of the Board of Governors of the IAEA on November 26^th.

And then finally, and last but not least at all, is to talk about what the President said that we have to start turning our attention to, and that’s developing a package of measures that will show to Iran the seriousness of the consequences of their noncompliance with the requirements of the international community. And I think that the important thing here is that there is unity in the P-5+1 of the overall goal of getting Iran to live up to its obligations, and there is a commitment by all members of the P-5+1 to this dual track, which includes not only engagement but also pressure.

So as the President said, over the next few weeks, we’re going to consult with our partners and allies about what we can do to show Iran that their nonresponsiveness, if you will, is – will have real consequences.

QUESTION: So the open-ended application of these consequences that the President mentioned seems to be – I mean, it’ll just go on and on. I mean, will --

MR. KELLY: Well, it’s not open-ended. No, I mean, he was very clear that this is not – this is not open-ended, that there is an end to this. And I think he’s pointed to the end of this year, which is coming very quickly.

QUESTION: So we’re still on to the end of this year? That’s still the deadline for that?

MR. KELLY: Well, this is a multilateral approach, and I – we will have to do this in consultation with our allies and partners. But I think that everybody realizes that we have to approach this with some urgency.

Peter.

QUESTION: Yes, Ian, you mentioned a package of measures. If you don’t mind, could you name just some?

MR. KELLY: Can I name them?

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. KELLY: I’m going to decline from naming them at the present time. This is something that’s going to be discussed within the P-5+1 and within various multilateral fora. But I’d – it’s – it wouldn’t be productive for me to get into specifics right now.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: Much as you’d like me to.

QUESTION: Yeah. That’s fine.

QUESTION: I have a question on next week’s visit by the Indian prime minister, Dr. Singh. Is there any event scheduled here by Secretary Clinton (inaudible)? Would you be able to announce them?

MR. KELLY: There will be – yes, there will be an event here. I believe it’s a lunch, but off the top of my head I don’t the – I can’t remember the date of it. I think it’s Tuesday, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.

QUESTION: And there will be separate meeting between Secretary Clinton and the prime minister?

MR. KELLY: Within this event here, and there may be another one as well. But the Secretary, of course, will be – she will be in the meetings at the White House that the President will have, bilateral meetings and other events at the White House. But there will be a bilateral meeting between her and Mr. Singh, and also a – she will host a lunch here as well for his delegation.

QUESTION: And what are the issues do you think would be – would come up for discussion?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think that regional issues will be very important, particularly since the Secretary has just come back from Afghanistan, so they’ll want to talk about issues related to South Asia. She’ll want to talk about the State Department’s role in the Strategic Dialogue with India, so we’ll want to get into more detail on how we carry through with that. And just a whole range of diplomatic issues.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: Dave.

QUESTION: Yeah. Human Rights Watch had a report out yesterday, said basically that the Cuban Government’s human rights record has not gotten any better under Raul Castro, and in fact, in some aspects, is worse in that they’re doing some preemptive arrests of people they think might violate whatever order is there. I’m just wondering, has this given the Administration any cause to rethink some of the contacts that it’s been having with the Cuban Government?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think first of all, we share many of the concerns put forth in this report, particularly regarding the incarceration of political prisoners as well as actions that have violated the human rights of Cuban citizens and have basically limited the exercise of what we call or we would consider fundamental freedoms.

We – human rights is at the center of our Cuban policy. We are interested in promoting human rights for all Cubans. We have begun an engagement with Cuba of – in areas of national interest and mutual concern. We’ve also launched some initiatives creating opportunities for Cuban civil society to more easily receive information and interact with their family and also with Cubans who live in the United States. This is the increasing the mail service and increasing telephone service.

So this is a real priority for the United States, and it will continue to be so.

QUESTION: One other – Human Rights Watch recommended that, again, the United States sort of abandon a general embargo against Cuba and get together with other interested countries and just basically issue an ultimatum on Cuba to release all political prisoners by a date certain or face sort of targeted sanctions. Is that an idea that has any appeal to the Administration?

MR. KELLY: Yeah, I haven’t seen the exact recommendations of the Human Rights Watch. I think you’ve heard me say before that we’ve made some gestures to Cuba, and we are waiting to see Cuba make some – take some concrete steps to show that they are also serious in opening up their society and opening up exchanges and interactions with the U.S. And I think that we need to see some more concrete steps before we take any actions like that.

QUESTION: Is that – human rights in the hemisphere?

MR. KELLY: Sure.

QUESTION: I believe last week, or maybe a little bit before then, you were asked about human rights abuses in Honduras, and reports from the same organization that Dave just mentioned as well as Amnesty International and local human rights groups who have catalogued 4,234 violations since the coup, including 21 murders, or executions as they call them.

There are growing calls from trade union movement here for the U.S. not to recognize the elections unless these things are corrected. Is this something of concern to you guys?

MR. KELLY: It is. It has been and remains a concern. There have been a number of human rights violations since the coup, and we have consistently called on the regime to respect the rights of individual citizens. And we’ve been particularly concerned about some of the moves against the media. And the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa is closely monitoring the situation. It has reported back to us about a number of allegations of arbitrary arrests, disproportionate use of force, and, in particular, restrictions on freedom of expression. So yeah, we are concerned about it.

QUESTION: Well, what are you doing about it?

MR. KELLY: Well, I just laid out to you that we’re monitoring very, very closely and we’re engaged with the government of Mr. Micheletti to express our concerns.

QUESTION: Right, but do you think that this has any impact on whether the election can be free and fair?

MR. KELLY: I mean, an election being recognized as free and fair has many different aspects. The lack of freedom of media, of course, is an important – would be an important indicator of this. But as I’ve said before, I think we need to look at exactly how the elections are conducted. But it is fair to say that we are concerned about the human rights situation.

QUESTION: All right. Well, I guess what I’m trying to get at is does this play any role in whether you will recognize the election, setting aside the whole Zelaya reinstitution?

MR. KELLY: Well --

QUESTION: Or is it a case where, “Well, there may be some abuses going on and it may – but it’s not going to – we’re still going to recognize the election?”

MR. KELLY: We’ll have to see how it – how they’re actually conducted. Part of it, of course, is the run-up to the elections themselves. It’s not just the day of the election. A big part of whether or not elections are free and fair --

QUESTION: That’s exactly why I’m asking the question. In the run-up to the election, so it --

MR. KELLY: Yeah, yeah. Well, sure, I mean, we’ll look at restrictions on the media, particularly restrictions of access to candidates in the campaign before the elections themselves.

Yes.

QUESTION: While we’re on Honduras, you seem to have indicated this week that although the United States still thinks that the restitution of Zelaya to the presidency is key for the October 30^th accord to be played out, you indicated also that it doesn’t really matter when the congressional vote takes place. Does this mean that if the congress drags its feet on voting to approve the accord or not, that as long as Zelaya occupies the presidency for a day, an hour, a minute before the new president takes over, that this is okay with Washington?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think first of all, the vote to decide to restore Zelaya is important. But the accord lays out one very important thing that has to happen before the elections, and that’s the establishment of a government of national unity and reconciliation before the election. So I just wanted to emphasize that that really is – if you’re looking at this as a step-by-step process, that’s one step that we are really focusing on. They’ve already missed that deadline. The accord, I think, really only had one deadline. The October 30 accord had one deadline and that was November 5^th to form this government of national unity and reconciliation. And that deadline has passed.

I think it’s important – I don’t want to overemphasize the importance of it – but it’s important that they have taken action to set a date for the consideration of the restoration, and that’s December 2^nd. So I would point to that. But this formation of the national unity government is important because part of this whole process is reconciliation. For Honduras to have a government that really reflects the will of the people, we need to have this process of reconciliation between the Zelaya camp and the de facto camp. So that’s one thing that Craig Kelly was really focused on when he was down there yesterday and the day before, was to get some movement on this.

QUESTION: Yeah, thank you.

MR. KELLY: Yeah, Matt, go ahead.

QUESTION: I’ve just got a couple of loose ends here. Do you have any comment on the rising tensions between Russia, Georgia, and the kidnappings of people that have been going on in Ossetia and Abkhazia?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think we’re – we are concerned that the situation down there remains tense, remains unresolved in many ways. There are parts of the ceasefire agreement of last year, last August, that haven’t been completely implemented. And there is a process for the two sides to talk these issues out, the Geneva process. And that, I think, is one good forum to try and resolve these issues. But yeah, we are concerned about the tension in the South Caucasus.

QUESTION: When was the last time that that met in Geneva?

MR. KELLY: That’s a good question.

STAFF: It was recently, I think a few weeks ago.

MR. KELLY: Yeah, a few weeks ago.

QUESTION: All right. And then do you have any indication from the Iraqi Government at all that they’re getting involved in the case of the detained hikers in Iran?

MR. KELLY: I don’t have anything on that, I’m afraid.

QUESTION: All right. Okay. And lastly, tomorrow is the three-month anniversary of al-Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds. And Senator Schumer has written a letter to Gordon Brown with a rather interesting suggestion that – or not suggestion, a demand that since the guy isn’t dead yet and they said that he only had three months to live, he should be returned to – immediately returned back to Britain to go to jail. Schumer said – he said in his statement from his office, which actually misspells Lockerbie, unfortunately – (laughter) – says that since --

MR. KELLY: Hey, can you release the text of that?

QUESTION: -- since he has outlived the term of his release, and there has been speculation about exaggerations of the severity of his condition, the British Government should seek his immediate transfer back to prison in Scotland. Do you share Senator Schumer’s belief that since he hasn’t died yet, he should be sent back?

MR. KELLY: Well, you know what our stance on this has been, is that we believed all along that Mr. Megrahi should have served out his sentence in Scotland.

QUESTION: Well, no, but now this is – this three-month thing, I’m just wondering if – would the U.S. Government join in with Senator Schumer in demanding that since he’s still alive, he should go back to prison?

MR. KELLY: Well, we’d be happy to get Senator Schumer’s points of view on this. I haven’t seen the letter, but I’d be happy to have discussions with him.

QUESTION: All right. I’ll give it to you.

MR. KELLY: Thank you.

QUESTION: Thank you.

(The briefing was concluded at 2:17 p.m.)

DPB #199

Ian Kelly

Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

1:37 p.m. EST

MR. KELLY: (Laughter.) Here we go. The first two rows have arrived. So the Secretary arrived today, late afternoon Kabul time, around 5 o’clock. And she proceeded to the Embassy where she met with employees of the Embassy, and gave her appreciation for all the hard work that they’re doing under very challenging circumstances.

After that, she had a meeting with senior leadership at the Embassy to get an in-brief on the day’s schedule – today’s schedule, tomorrow’s schedule – on an – an in-brief on the situation in Afghanistan. She then went to the presidential palace, where she had a meeting with President Karzai and some of his senior leadership, and this is going to be followed by a dinner with President Karzai.

And of course, tomorrow she will be the U.S. representative, the head of the U.S. delegation to the inauguration of President Karzai. We also expect that there will be a – that this will be preceded by a meeting with other foreign ministers who are present for the inauguration to talk about our shared effort in Afghanistan. She expects also to have a roundtable with U.S. Foreign Service officers and others from Provincial Reconstruction Teams, followed by a greeting with U.S. and international troops in ISAF, and then she will depart by early evening, Kabul time, we expect.

And I’ll take your questions.

QUESTION: Do you know anything about this report today about an Afghan minister accepting a $30 million bribe from the Chinese?

MR. KELLY: We, of course – we have seen this report, and I think we’ve all seen the report. We’re aware of the allegations – and I’ll stress that, that this – these are allegations. We would highlight that President Karzai himself has identified corruption as a serious problem. And we expect him to take concrete actions to fight this problem. We are working with our international partners to encourage the new government, to make sure that the efforts that they have pledged to undertake have a significant impact on the Afghan Government that would strengthen the institutions that deal with this problem, both in terms of investigating them, and then ultimately prosecuting them.

We know that this is an important sector that was involved. The mining sector has great promise for Afghanistan’s growth and prosperity. And of course, in addition to this economic promise, there has to be transparency in how these contracts are let and how these resources are developed. I think as you know, for our part, we have pretty strong monitoring mechanisms for the kind of aid that we give to the Government of Afghanistan, and this is to ensure that the aid that the U.S. taxpayer is giving, it reaches the people that it’s intended to reach and has the kind of impact that we want to have and that are in the U.S. national interests.

QUESTION: Do you believe that this guy did take this money?

MR. KELLY: I don’t have any views on it. I know that these allegations are very serious. And we hope that these and other serious allegations are investigated.

QUESTION: Well, I need to know – who’s making the allegation?

MR. KELLY: I don’t know. I seriously do not know.

QUESTION: Well, according to the story, it was a U.S. official. So –

MR. KELLY: I saw the story, I saw the attribution, but I don’t know who’s making the allegation.

QUESTION: Is the U.S. Government making this allegation, or is this someone freelancing?

MR. KELLY: Matt, I really – I don’t know. I mean, it’s an unnamed source, and I don’t know who the source is or where --

QUESTION: Well, are you concerned --

MR. KELLY: -- where the source is.

QUESTION: – are you concerned that – about this possible bribery --

MR. KELLY: I think we’re – we are concerned about corruption. We’re – we –

QUESTION: Are you concerned about this particular case?

MR. KELLY: Well, I – as I say, this project is important to the Afghan people. It’s --

QUESTION: Yeah, I understand that.

MR. KELLY: -- it has the potential to create a lot of jobs and can contribute to economic prosperity and growth.

QUESTION: Look, what I’m trying to –

MR. KELLY: But as far as the actual allegations themselves, I don’t know if they’re true or not. But I – if --

QUESTION: I know you don’t know if they’re true. I just want to know who’s making them.

MR. KELLY: I don’t know.

QUESTION: I mean, is this some – just some guy out there running his mouth off, without any --

MR. KELLY: I do not know.

QUESTION: Well, then how can you be concerned about it, if you don’t know where it’s coming from? I mean, anybody can get out there and say –

MR. KELLY: I’m concerned about any kind of allegations of this kind of corruption of a senior government official. It undermines the credibility of the government, and it undermines the faith of the Afghan people in their government.

QUESTION: But I guess what I’m trying – who suspects that there was some wrongdoing here? Just some guy out there? Or is it a U.S. Government-wide suspicion?

MR. KELLY: As I say, I do not know who this individual is.

QUESTION: Oh, no, neither --

MR. KELLY: I do know that we do have very serious concerns about allegations of corruption.

QUESTION: About this allegation?

MR. KELLY: How many times do I have to say it? I don’t --

QUESTION: Ian, it’s very easy for an official to come out and say, well, Minister X is – we think that he’s done this. But it doesn’t have – it doesn’t really hold any weight unless someone’s prepared to put their name behind it.

MR. KELLY: This is true. I agree.

QUESTION: So in other words, this is just frivolity?

MR. KELLY: Well, they – I think the key word here is allegation, and it’s an allegation that needs to be looked into.

QUESTION: Well, look, you know, we went through this with the last administration, you know, where someone would float something and “Oh, Iraq has got WMD,” and it would be an unnamed source and then, you know, the Vice President or whoever would show up on the Sunday talk shows --

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, I’m not sure --

QUESTION: -- and say, “Well, look at this allegation.”

MR. KELLY: I’m not sure of the equivalence here of (inaudible) and WMD.

QUESTION: I’m trying to find out who is behind making this allegation. Is it the U.S. Government that’s suspicious or is it just some guy who thinks that he has an idea that this minister may have taken $30 million in bribes?

MR. KELLY: It’s a very serious allegation and it should be looked into.

QUESTION: Will the Secretary be raising this with President Karzai?

MR. KELLY: I think what the Secretary – as I said before, this is a very important issue. This is – this gets at the heart of democratic governance. It gets to the heart of the importance of the accountability of the government to the people. And so this is a serious issue. I’m sure the Secretary is raising it right now.

But I think she’s also going to be looking at the importance of the moment, that this is a real moment of opportunity. It’s a moment of opportunity for the government to turn a new page, to put into place Afghan-led structures that will help establish confidence in the Afghan Government, that it can deliver services, it can deliver security, and it can conduct its business in an open and transparent way.

Yeah, Charley.

QUESTION: Does turning the page demand a change of personnel in the top echelons of Karzai’s government?

MR. KELLY: Well, I mean, this is a – it’s a multifaceted process. I think you need to have in place a process, and I think that they’ve started to take some of the first steps towards this process. There needs to be an investigative aspect to this. There needs to be – the Executive Branch has to do the – has to look into the allegations, like those allegations that were in The Washington Post today, and then you need to have a prosecutorial part of it.

And we’ve seen them – we’ve seen the Afghan Government start to take some steps towards this, but the important thing is going to be the follow-through, and that’s what we’re going to be looking for, is implementation. It’s not going to be just a matter of us telling them what to do. It – we are going to – we’re going to stand ready to help them build this kind of capacity. I mean, it is a very challenging thing for any government to do, I think, to establish these new structures. And we stand ready to help them as they go through this.

Michel.

QUESTION: Change of subject?

MR. KELLY: Anything else on Afghanistan or the Secretary’s schedule?

Okay.

QUESTION: The Iranian foreign minister has said today that Iran reviewed the proposal and will definitely not send out our 3.5 percent enriched uranium. He added that means that we will consider swapping the nuclear fuel simultaneously in Iran. Do you consider this statement as a formal Iranian answer to the proposal? And what would be the next step?

MR. KELLY: This proposal was done by the IAEA in consultation with Russia, France, and the United States. We’ve all accepted this proposal. We have submitted a formal response to Mr. El Baradei, and this is what Iran needs to do. They need to give a formal response to El Baradei. Something that is said to the media, of course, doesn’t – what was said today doesn’t inspire our confidence that they’re going to deliver a positive response, of course. But this is the IAEA’s proposal and Iran has to give their response to the IAEA, and that’s what we’re waiting for. That’s what the IAEA is waiting for.

QUESTION: But it’s not their response, do you think?

MR. KELLY: Until the IAEA gets the response and formally says this is the – this is Iran’s response, I don’t consider a statement to the – to the press necessarily a response.

QUESTION: Well, Ian, are you saying that the IAEA didn’t listen to what he had to say?

MR. KELLY: Oh, I’m sure they did. I’m sure they did.

QUESTION: So if you don’t think that a statement to the press is any kind of a formal response, what are you doing up here every day?

MR. KELLY: I think I’ve heard that. I’m having a déjà vu here.

QUESTION: Yeah. Well, I’m just trying to figure it out.

MR. KELLY: I think I’ve heard this before.

QUESTION: I mean, if you’re speaking – you know, when you speak from the podium, you’re obviously giving the U.S. Government’s opinion, when the Secretary speaks from the podium as well. So when the Iranian foreign minister speaks to the Iranian media, you just ignore that, pretend it never happened?

MR. KELLY: No, we don’t ignore it. There was – on October 1^st, there was a meeting and it was – the proposal by the IAEA was accepted in principle by all the parties, including Iran, and there was also an agreement that each of the parties would provide a written response to their proposal. Russia, France, and the United States have provided a written response, and we expect Iran to provide a written response, and we expect the IAEA to pronounce on that response. So we will wait for the IAEA to make a formal response to this.

QUESTION: Right. Just remind me of the timeline again here? The meeting – the Iranians allegedly agreed to this in principle on October 1^st?

MR. KELLY: That’s right. Yeah.

QUESTION: What’s today’s date?

MR. KELLY: I believe its November 18^th.

QUESTION: Yeah. You know, that’s an awful long time, and during which they are continuing to enrich. So I guess the question is the same as yesterday. How long is too long? When do you actually do something?

MR. KELLY: Well, we are continuing to consult with the IAEA, with our P-5+1 partners. We have a policy of a dual track, both engagement and pressure. At a certain point, we will consult with our P-5+1 partners. And we will keep both of these tracks open. We’re not going to close any door on the engagement track, but at a certain point I think we’re going to start paying a little more attention to the other track. We’re not quite at that point right now, but as I said before, I think that time is short.

QUESTION: Ian, it seems where Mottaki has made these comments today, the script in Farsi of the interview is a little more clearer. He says that we’ve already given our answer, and he goes step by step into how this whole process started, and he says we were supposed to give answers till Friday, and then Tehran did its study and announced its decision. That means what the IAEA dubbed as the initial response is considered by Tehran as the final response.

MR. KELLY: Well, again, so we’ll continue to consult with the IAEA. As far as I know, the IAEA has not received a formal response. If that is true that they have sent a response, then we’ll consult with our P-5+1 partners and we’ll decide what the next steps are.

QUESTION: Well, apparently, it was not in written form – oral, so (inaudible) apparently (inaudible).

MR. KELLY: Well, we’ll follow up with the IAEA if that’s indeed true. I’m not --

QUESTION: That’s what he’s saying.

MR. KELLY: Okay.

Michel.

QUESTION: On Iraq, Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi has vetoed the election law today. Do you have any reaction to that?

MR. KELLY: We’re disappointed at these developments related to the elections law. We urge the Iraqi leaders and parliament to take quick action to resolve any of the outstanding concerns that have been expressed. And this is so elections can go forward. And these elections, of course, are mandated by the Iraqi constitution.

We believe that it’s the responsibility of all Iraqi parties to ensure that the Iraqi people are able to exercise their democratic right to vote, and this election law represents the best way forward for the Iraqi Government to be able to consolidate the democratic and political achievements.

QUESTION: But with two months to go, what is the implication for not – for triggering or not triggering the provisions of SOFA, which would suspend the U.S. troop withdrawals from the designated areas?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, I – right now, the way things stand, our plans remain on track for our military withdrawal. We remain committed to this plan. And of course, you know what the plan is. We cease all combat operations by August 2010 and fulfill the other obligations we have under this security agreement.

As I said, we urge the Iraqi parliament to take quick action. There is a certain urgency here timewise because the elections are mandated by the constitution to take place in January, by the end of January. So we just hope that they will take action in a very quick and expeditious way.

QUESTION: Has there been any American communication about what the implications are for the troop deployments?

MR. KELLY: I think that the Iraqi leaders themselves recognize the importance of getting this election law done, of keeping to this timetable. We have a couple of kind of parallel timetables going here. It’s in everybody’s interest that we keep to these timetables. And as I said before, we remain committed to this plan of the President to uphold our end of the agreement, and we plan to. But as I say, there is a certain time urgency here.

Yes. Charley, do you have a question on –

QUESTION: Different topic.

MR. KELLY: Different topic. Okay, go ahead.

QUESTION: Different topic. Do you have any update on Ambassador Bosworth’s trip to Pyongyang?

MR. KELLY: I don’t have any updates today or any announcements to make. I think in the near future, though, we’ll be able to make an announcement.

Charley.

QUESTION: On Iran, please. Your reaction to the death sentences handed down to five people in regard to election protests as well as lengthy prison terms doled out to dozens of other people?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, I think our policy on this has been pretty consistent that Iran needs to respect the rights of the Iranian people to peacefully express their opinions. We have had concerns about the way some of these trials have been conducted. They’ve been conducted as kind of mass trials. We always have had concerns about Iran’s adherence to an open, transparent, due process of law. And we continue to call on Iran to have an open judicial and legal process.

QUESTION: Ian, I’m curious. What do you base those concerns on, the trials?

MR. KELLY: What do I base the concerns on?

QUESTION: Yeah.

MR. KELLY: Whenever I get a question about specific legal procedures, I always tend to sort of hesitate and --

QUESTION: Well, I’m just curious, because you don’t have any ambassador – you don’t have any diplomats there. I don’t think these trials have been open to the Swiss or any other diplomats.

MR. KELLY: Right. Well, that’s exactly --

QUESTION: So how do you --

MR. KELLY: Well, here, that’s one of our concerns right there, that they haven’t been open.

QUESTION: And that – and they’ve been mass trials? I mean, do you have reason to believe that due process was not followed in these cases?

MR. KELLY: Let me give you – get you very specific answers to this since we are getting into areas that are kind of beyond my --

QUESTION: Okay. I just want to make sure you’re not basing your concern --

MR. KELLY: -- education and confidence.

QUESTION: I just want to make sure you’re not basing your concerns on media reports of it, because if you were --

MR. KELLY: Now I know where you’re going with that. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: -- then I would go back to the foreign minister.

MR. KELLY: I see, okay. Yeah, in the back. Yeah.

QUESTION: On the visa waiver (inaudible), I have your answer, but do you have any idea when the process is going to be concluded?

MR. KELLY: I don’t think I have a date certain for you, but it’s my understanding that it will be soon. But I don’t have an exact date for you.

Yeah, Dave.

QUESTION: Ian, on Honduras, the parliament seems to have put off until after the election a decision on whether Zelaya will be restored. What does that do for the possible credibility of these elections?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, let me give you kind of an update of where we are. Craig Kelly, of course, has been in Tegucigalpa. He’s been down there to help support the implementation of the accord. He held a series of meetings down there to support the OAS efforts to have it fully implemented. He’s met with President Zelaya and he met with the de facto leader Mr. Micheletti. He told us that these were very frank and open talks.

Regarding the reports on the Honduran lawmakers will not decide on whether or not to restore Zelaya until after the elections, according to the accord, the – it called for the national congress to issue a pronouncement on the restoration of a democratically elected authority, Mr. Zelaya. As you know, it never stipulated a timetable for the congressional action. All along, we’ve called on the congress to act expeditiously in the spirit of the accord. We believe that steady steps towards the implementation of the accord will enhance the prospects for transparent, free, and open elections that will ultimately resolve this crisis and allow Honduras to rejoin the international community of nations.

Another one of these important steps towards the implementation of the accord and resolving this crisis is the formation of the – of a government of national unity. So that’s also an important component to this.

But since the accord never actually gave any kind of deadline by – to have this vote by the national congress, scheduling the vote on December 2^nd doesn’t necessarily – isn’t necessarily inconsistent with the accord.

QUESTION: What – I’m sorry. That’s – you’ve just opened your – this is – they’re going to have a field day with this. So it’s okay with you if five years from now, they go and come back and say, all right, yeah, Zelaya can go – he’s restored, when you can’t – you can’t be restored after you’re voted out of office if you’re not – he’s not even running.

MR. KELLY: That’s right. I mean, he – his term ends the end of January.

QUESTION: Yeah. And so it’s okay – so it’s okay with you, and you’ll – it will be all right and you’ll accept the results of the election, if they – even if they don’t put him back in when you --

MR. KELLY: Well, he’s not running. He’s not running for the election.

QUESTION: Yeah, but he’s going to be out – he’s effectively out of office. I mean, talk about – that’s the lamest of lame ducks. He’s not – he is – I’m confused. You no longer think that he has to be restored before he is voted out of office?

MR. KELLY: Well, it has been a very strong principle of ours that in order for the country to be reconciled, there has to be a restoration of the democratically elected president. That implies that he has to be restored before the end of his term, okay?

QUESTION: So basically --

QUESTION: All right. So 10 minutes – 10 minutes before the end of his term?

QUESTION: December – until the end of January it can be.

MR. KELLY: Look, I mean, clearly, he has to be restored in a timely way. And I don’t think we’ve ever said anything but that.

QUESTION: Well --

MR. KELLY: But what we’re focused on is the implementation of the accord. I mean, that’s – and – I think that’s what everybody has to be focused on is. And that’s what Craig Kelly was down there for to make sure that it’s done step by step. And there are a number of steps that have to take place. Now, the national congress has set a date to pronounce on this, to pronounce on this issue of the – what – I mean, the accord calls it a pronouncement on the reversion of the executive branch, a pronouncement on the – whether or not Mr. Zelaya should return.

This is a – this is basically – it’s a – we have a lot of interests, obviously. This is – the Organization of American States have a – has a lot of interest in having a government down there that reflects the will of the people and having reconciliation between the Zelaya camp and the Micheletti camp.

QUESTION: Am I correct in thinking that there’s --

MR. KELLY: And the accord is the best to do this.

QUESTION: Am I correct in thinking that there is no way to guarantee that this pronouncement will even restore him to office?

MR. KELLY: It’s up to the congress.

QUESTION: They could come –

MR. KELLY: The both sides --

QUESTION: -- back and say no, he can’t come back and --

MR. KELLY: They could come back. I mean, that is --

QUESTION: Well, what happens then?

MR. KELLY: Well, we’ll – let’s see then.

QUESTION: Then you walk into --

MR. KELLY: It’s now. It’s not then.

QUESTION: Ian, will the election --

MR. KELLY: It’s a Honduran crisis. And we want to make sure that --

QUESTION: Well --

MR. KELLY: -- the Hondurans are able to sit down --

QUESTION: -- you inserted yourself into it --

MR. KELLY: We have.

QUESTION: -- quite – so it’s no longer just a Honduran crisis. You’re involved.

MR. KELLY: Of course, we’re involved. We are involved because we want to be involved, because it’s important for us to be involved. We’re involved because they want us to be involved.

QUESTION: Ian, the election will enjoy international support, including that of the United States, even if at the time they vote the Congress hasn’t decided?

MR. KELLY: It all depends on how the vote is conducted. It depends on how the campaign is conducted. We will decide how to pronounce on the election when we see how it is conducted.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: Sorry, another topic.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Could you tell us or update us, what’s the status of the negotiations with the Yemeni Government about the repatriation of Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared for release?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. I’m not sure I have that. Hold on one second. We’ll have to get back to you on that.

QUESTION: Can you just describe what you see as the sticking point in these negotiations?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Again, let me just take that question and we’ll get back to you.

(The briefing was concluded at 2:07 p.m.)

DPB #198

Ian Kelly

Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

1:22 p.m. EST

MR. KELLY: Okay. Good afternoon. I think you all know that the Secretary is in Beijing today and followed the President’s schedule, so I don’t really have any separate announcements on her schedule. Today is an important day for the people of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

You know it’s the 20^th anniversary of the beginning of the Velvet Revolution, and we celebrate the vibrant democracies of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and salute those who work to bring freedom to their land, the dissidents and activists who risked all they had to demand a free and better life – the mothers and fathers, workers and students who never lost faith that a system built on tyranny and oppression could and would be overcome.

So on this historic occasion, we congratulate the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 20 years of democracy and reaffirm the commitment of the United States to our strong alliance as we work together to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of the 21^st century.

And that’s all I have, so I’ll take your questions.

QUESTION: Iran. One, do you have anything more to say about the latest IAEA report than what was in the talking points that were put out yesterday?

MR. KELLY: Well, we continue to stay in close contact with the IAEA and with our P-5+1 colleagues. The recent report, as we noted yesterday, underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully with its international nuclear obligations. Instead, it’s expanded its work in uranium enrichment and heavy water-related activities. And it’s conducted a multiyear effort to construct a clandestine enrichment facility in contravention of the UN Security Council requirements and IAEA obligations.

The Director General verified that the Qom facility was built to accommodate approximately 3,000 centrifuges, although no centrifuges, of course, had been installed. The report notes that the purpose of the facility and the chronology of its construction require clarification from Iran. The report further notes that Iran’s failure to inform the IAEA of the facility near Qom is inconsistent with its safeguard obligations, and underlines the fact that its failure to declare this facility reduces confidence about the absence of other nuclear facilities that have not been declared to the IAEA.

And finally, the report notes that for over a year, Iran has refused the IAEA’s request to provide substantive explanations regarding its past work to develop a nuclear warhead and other possible military dimensions to its nuclear program.

QUESTION: Okay. So where does that leave you?

MR. KELLY: Well, we – as I said, we are consulting with our P-5+1 contacts. We are still waiting for a formal response to the proposal that the IAEA put forward to enrich its LEU outside of Iran. We hope that they will provide a formal response, but the failure to provide a response to this and its overall noncompliance, as laid out in the IAEA agreement, frankly doesn’t give us a whole lot of confidence that they will respond formally. But we are still not prepared to close the door on that possibility right now.

QUESTION: It doesn’t appear as though President Obama has made much headway with either the Russians or the Chinese in terms of another – more sanctions. Are you prepared to go it alone?

MR. KELLY: Well, I’m not sure I agree with you on that. I haven’t seen exactly what the Chinese have said recently, but I read what President Medvedev said after the meeting in Singapore with the President, and he made --

QUESTION: Yeah. I mean, you guys have been spinning that up ever since he spoke at the UN, and it’s just – you know, I’m sorry, it’s --

MR. KELLY: But they – Matt, they have gone along with us all along. I mean, we share the same goal.

QUESTION: No. In fact, I was sitting in Moscow --

MR. KELLY: They’ve signed on --

QUESTION: -- when Lavrov specifically said that even the threat of sanctions is not helpful and was – it was counterproductive.

MR. KELLY: Well, I heard President Medvedev say that there are a number of options that we have to look into, and if there – if they do fail to engage, we’re going to have to look at some of these options.

QUESTION: Okay. But you were in the same room, weren’t you, when Lavrov --

MR. KELLY: I was, yeah.

QUESTION: -- said that it was counterproductive to even talk about the idea?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. That was about a month ago, too.

QUESTION: Yeah, it was.

MR. KELLY: And this is what --

QUESTION: And look where – and what’s happened since? Nothing.

MR. KELLY: Well, I mean, it was before the – this IAEA report. It was before we had the proposal on – to enrich their lower – their low-enriched uranium outside of the country, and the apparent failure to provide a formal response. So I think the frustration is mounting.

QUESTION: So –

MR. KELLY: And I wouldn’t take something that was said a month ago as necessarily applicable to today.

QUESTION: Well, is there any headway on having a new meeting on this issue?

MR. KELLY: A new meeting with Iran, you mean?

QUESTION: With Iran, without Iran?

MR. KELLY: As I say, we continue to consult with our contacts in the P-5+1 context, and I don’t have anything to announce at this time. But I mean, clearly, we’re going to have to review the bidding, given the fact that the – that Iran has not provided us with a formal response. As I said before, we’re not prepared to actually pronounce that they have rejected the deal because they haven’t formally rejected the deal yet. But we’ll continue to consult with them.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Is there any timeline on what you would say that you’ve just decided amounts to a formal rejection, or can we spin this out for weeks and weeks and weeks?

MR. KELLY: Well, I’m not sure. No, I – we always hesitate to give a formal deadline. But I would – I mean, I would just say that time is very short.

QUESTION: Well, it has already been spun out for weeks and weeks and weeks. And all that – all the time, what has Iran been doing in terms of enrichment for the past – since the October 1^st – or since the offer was allegedly accepted by them?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, I think that’s –

QUESTION: Are they or are they not continuing to enrich?

MR. KELLY: I believe that they are, and I think that that –

QUESTION: Right.

MR. KELLY: – was pointed out in the IAEA report.

QUESTION: Well, exactly. So I’m – just, you know, at what point do you – is too much too much?

MR. KELLY: Well, that point will come, but we’re not at it yet.

Michel?

QUESTION: On the peace process, Israel has approved today the construction of 900 new housing units in East Jerusalem. How do you view this approval at this specific time?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think, Michel, you’ve heard us say many times that we believe that neither party should engage in any kind of actions that could unilaterally preempt or appear to preempt negotiations. And I think that we find the Jerusalem Planning Committee’s decision to move forward on the approval of the – approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem as dismaying.

This is at a time when we’re working to re-launch negotiations, and we believe that these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed. So we object to this, and we object to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes.

And – just to repeat what we’ve said all along, our position on Jerusalem is clear. We believe that the – that Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the two parties.

QUESTION: Can you tell us, did this come up in Ambassador Mitchell’s meetings in London yesterday? Apparently, we were told that he met an advisor to Netanyahu, asked them to not permit these new buildings, and then that request was flatly turned down.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Andy, I just don’t want to get into the substance of these negotiations. They’re sensitive. I think you’ve seen the Israeli – some Israeli press reports that did report that this was raised in the meetings. This is – I mean, these kinds of unilateral actions are exactly the kind of actions that we think that both sides should refrain from at a time when we’re trying to start the negotiations again. But I don’t want to get into the substance of the discussions yesterday in London.

QUESTION: Would you steer us away from not believing the Israeli press reports?

MR. KELLY: I just don’t want to get into the substance. I’m not going to steer you one way or the other on it.

QUESTION: Where’s Senator Mitchell today?

QUESTION: How long is the U.S. going to continue to tolerate Israel’s violation of international law? I mean, soon it’s not even going to be possible – there’s not going to be any land left for the Palestinians to establish an independent state.

MR. KELLY: Well, again, this is a – we understand the Israeli point of view about Jerusalem. But we think that all sides right now, at this time when we’re expending such intense efforts to try and get the two sides to sit down, that we should refrain from these actions, like this decision to move forward on an approval process for more housing units in East Jerusalem.

QUESTION: But should U.S. inaction, or in response to Israel’s actions, then be interpreted as some sort of about-face in policy – the President turning his back on the promises he’s made to the Palestinians?

MR. KELLY: You’re – okay, you’re using language that I wouldn’t use. I mean, again, our focus is to get these negotiations started. We’re calling on both parties to refrain from actions, from – and from rhetoric that would impede this process. It’s a challenging time, and we just need to focus on what’s important here, and that’s --

QUESTION: Well, what actions (inaudible) the Palestinians taken recently that would impede progress?

MR. KELLY: Well, as I say, we would discourage all unilateral actions, and I think --

QUESTION: Fair enough. But the Palestinians --

MR. KELLY: We talked yesterday --

QUESTION: -- don’t appear to be taking any unilateral actions. It seems to be (inaudible).

MR. KELLY: Well, we did talk yesterday about the – and I want to make sure I get my language right here – about the – discouraging any kind of unilateral appeal for United Nations Security Council recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. That would fall in that category of unilateral actions.

QUESTION: Okay. So the Palestinian call for this, which was rejected by both the EU and yourself yesterday, you’re putting that on the same level as them building – as the Israelis building --

MR. KELLY: No, I’m not saying that. You just said that, Matt. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that --

QUESTION: Well, you’re saying you’re calling on both sides to stop doing these things.

MR. KELLY: We are.

QUESTION: Yeah. But the rhetoric from the --

MR. KELLY: I’m not saying they’re equivalent.

QUESTION: -- Palestinians is not actually constructed in a --

MR. KELLY: I’m not saying they’re equivalent. I’m just saying that we – they – we have to treat these things as sensitive issues.

QUESTION: You said a little bit earlier that we understand the Israeli point of view on Jerusalem. Can you explain what you mean by that?

MR. KELLY: Well, you have to ask – I’m not going to stand up here and characterize the Israeli point of view on --

QUESTION: No. I’m just asking you, if you understand the Israeli point of view on Jerusalem, why are you saying that this is not a good thing?

MR. KELLY: I’m not saying we support the Israeli point of view. We understand it.

QUESTION: Right. And then, last one on this, you characterized this decision by the planning commission as dismaying.

MR. KELLY: Yes.

QUESTION: You can’t come up with anything stronger than “dismaying”? I mean, this flies in the face of everything you’ve been talking about for months and months and months.

MR. KELLY: It’s dismaying.

QUESTION: Yeah, you can’t offer a condemnation of it or anything like that? (Laughter.) I mean, who is in charge of the language here.

MR. KELLY: I have said what I have said, Mr. Lee.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Would you say, though, that your own envoy has – does he have any leverage at this point, given the fact that the Israelis not only refuse, but blatantly have ignored his wishes on this?

MR. KELLY: Well, let’s take a step back and let’s also recognize that both sides agree on the goal, and that goal is a comprehensive peace. That goal is two states living side by side in peace and security and cooperation. So that is why we continue to be committed to this. That is why Special Envoy Mitchell meets with both sides at every opportunity, and why we are continuing to expend such efforts on this. So let’s remember that, that we do share a common goal.

QUESTION: Well, where’s Senator Mitchell today?

MR. KELLY: I believe Senator Mitchell is on his way back today.

QUESTION: Could you give us just a brief synopsis of the progress that Senator Mitchell has made in his months on the job?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think we have – we’ve gotten --

QUESTION: Yeah, maybe if the --

MR. KELLY: -- both sides to agree on this goal. We have gotten both sides --

QUESTION: Ian, they agreed on the goal years ago. I mean, that’s not --

MR. KELLY: Well, I think that we – this government --

QUESTION: You mean you got the Israel Government to say, yes, we’re willing to accept a Palestinian state? You got Netanyahu to say that, and that’s his big accomplishment?

MR. KELLY: That is an accomplishment.

QUESTION: But previous Israeli administration – previous Israeli governments had agreed to that already.

MR. KELLY: Okay, all right.

QUESTION: So in other words, the bottom line is that, in the list of accomplishments that Mitchell has come up with or established since he started, is zero.

MR. KELLY: I wouldn’t say zero.

QUESTION: Well, then what would you say it is?

MR. KELLY: Well, I would say that we’ve gotten both sides to commit to this goal. They have – we have – we’ve had a intensive round or rounds of negotiations, the President brought the two leaders together in New York. Look --

QUESTION: But wait, hold on. You haven’t had any intense --

MR. KELLY: Obviously --

QUESTION: There haven’t been any negotiations.

MR. KELLY: Obviously, we’re not even in the red zone yet, okay.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: I mean, we’re not – but it’s – we are less than a year into this Administration, and I think we’ve accomplished more over the last year than the previous administration did in eight years.

QUESTION: Well, I – really, because the previous administration actually had them sitting down talking to each other. You guys can’t even get that far.

MR. KELLY: All right.

QUESTION: I’ll drop it.

MR. KELLY: Give us a chance. Thank you, Matt.

Yeah, in the back.

QUESTION: It seems Senator Mitchell is focusing in his meetings on the Israeli side. Is he – does he have any plans to talk with the Palestinians, or there is no need now for that?

MR. KELLY: Well, he, as I say, he had meetings yesterday with the Israelis. He’s coming back to the U.S. now. He always stands ready to talk to both sides. There are no plans at this moment to meet with the Palestinian side.

Yeah, in the back.

QUESTION: Another subject. The U.S. Ambassador to Colombia mentioned that the U.S. is willing to play a proactive role between Venezuela and Colombia. What did he mean by that? Do you have any specific proposal on that?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. I haven’t seen those comments. Of course, we call on Colombia and Venezuela to resolve whatever differences that they have through bilateral dialogue. We support cooperation in that region, in South America, and we stand ready to assist if we can play some kind of supportive or facilitative role.

QUESTION: But according to the Venezuelan Government, the source of the tensions or the problem is actually the U.S.

MR. KELLY: Well, we don’t agree with that at all. We stand for more cooperation, more dialogue. We don’t have any aggressive intentions in South America, and we call for dialogue.

QUESTION: Would you propose a meeting with Venezuela and Colombia and the U.S.?

MR. KELLY: I’m not sure that that’s necessary. What’s necessary is for Colombia and Venezuela to sit down and work out the problems themselves.

QUESTION: Do you have any comments on what’s going on between Peru and Chile, the rise in tensions? You know there are some --

MR. KELLY: I would say just the same that I’ve said about Colombia and Venezuela, that we’re aware that there are tensions between the countries, and they – we call on them to work it out bilaterally.

QUESTION: But you are ready to play an active and proactive role in that?

MR. KELLY: Again, I’m not sure that that’s necessary. Neither side has asked us to do it. This is a matter for them to work out, but if we can be supportive, of course, we’re willing to be supportive.

QUESTION: So this is a case where the cookie-cutter approach actually does work?

MR. KELLY: What was in your coffee today, Matt? (Laughter.)

Goyal.

QUESTION: A couple questions on South Asia. One, since the U.S. Government is in China, including the Secretary and the President, are they going to discuss anything as far as prime minister of India’s visit? And do you have some synopsis of his visit now? What will be the agenda or discussions, and is – if the prime minister will be briefed on the Chinese visit and others?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. This is a state visit. I think it’s the first state visit of the Obama Administration. The White House is working on an agenda. I know that Under Secretary Burns has been very actively involved in coordinating the strategic dialogue framework that we have with India. The Secretary looks forward to participating in these meetings. I think she’s going to host at least one event here at the State Department.

But I’ll have to refer you to the White House for details on the schedule. And I’m sure that since the President has – would – will have just gotten back from China, and that’ll be fresh on his mind that he’ll – that he will share some of his impressions and thoughts about his visit to China as well.

QUESTION: Another one on – if you have seen the report according to the press reports and also a report that China and Pakistan secret uranium or nuclear deal – that A.Q. Khan has said that tons of enriched uranium was sent to Pakistan by the Chinese to foster their nuclear program. Have you seen the report if this has come up during the visit in China or --

MR. KELLY: No, I’m not sure, Goyal. Again, I’d have to refer you to the White House on that.

QUESTION: And a final on Pakistan.

MR. KELLY: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: Pakistani army is claiming victory in Waziristan, that they have captured a town. You think this has – if the U.S. has helped in any way, or you have any update on that?

MR. KELLY: Well, you know that we have a robust partnership with Pakistan, an aid package that is supportive of their economic development efforts, but also of their – some of their security efforts. And we’ve been very supportive of their offensive in South Waziristan and supportive of their efforts to deal with the problem of the violent extremists in the region.

QUESTION: So you’re happy so far, whatever the Pakistan is doing at --

MR. KELLY: We support what they’re doing, yes.

Charley? I think Charley had his hand up. Did you --

QUESTION: No, it’s the same – different topic.

MR. KELLY: No? Okay.

QUESTION: Well, I just want to ask, where is Holbrooke?

MR. KELLY: Holbrooke? Ambassador Holbrooke, I believe, is still in Moscow today.

QUESTION: Ian?

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Can I ask a question?

MR. KELLY: Sure.

QUESTION: A different topic. I don’t know whether you touched on it yesterday. If you did, I apologize, but do you have reaction to the Afghanistan Government announcement that they were launching a major crimes task force? And is this a step down a long path toward dealing with corruption problems? Does it satisfy the United States?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think that we’ve – we said that the – it’s time for actions, for the Afghan Government to address this problem of corruption, and that we stand prepared to work with them and support them as they address this. And we, of course, welcome the announcement that we saw of the formation of the major crimes task force.

This is done with American and British support, that it will investigate and prosecute major anticorruption, kidnapping, and organized crime cases. As I say, there are American and British law enforcement officials who are helping from the FBI and the British Serious and Organized Crime Agency. In addition, we welcome the attorney general’s recently established anticorruption unit. This is the Afghan attorney general, of course. And then we also welcome the announcement by the Chief Justice Azimi of another important institution, the national Anti-Corruption Tribunal, which is – which will be designed to set up serious corruption cases throughout Afghanistan.

QUESTION: Is this enough? I know there’s been widespread criticism of corruption in Afghanistan.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Is this enough? Is this going to meet the bar set by the United States?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think in the case of the latter, the Anti-Corruption Tribunal, this is – it’s an announcement that they intend to set up the tribunal. And of course, we’ll look forward to getting more details about how it intends to operate, what kind of cases it intends to prosecute. But again, it’s the actions that are important, and so we’ll be monitoring it closely. And of course, we stand ready to help, too, in whatever way we can. But I think that these are some of the early signs of the kinds of tangible steps that we need to see to demonstrate that the Afghan Government is serious about tackling corruption. But it’s fair to say that we welcome these steps, but a lot will depend on the implementation.

Yeah, Andy.

QUESTION: I have a sort of ancillary question back on the IAEA report. We’ve had your reaction to the Iran section of that report. I’m wondering if you have any reaction to the Syria section of that report, where they talk about --

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- deep suspicions about Syria’s activities.

MR. KELLY: Right. Right. If you just give me a second here, I do. Yeah, this is the fifth report by the IAEA relating to Syria’s nuclear activities since the Al Kibar reactor was destroyed in 2007. In the report, the IAEA makes clear that Syria unfortunately has not made any credible explanations that clarify the true nature and scope of its clandestine nuclear activities. The IAEA has again had to report that Syria is refusing to cooperate fully with the IAEA and has failed to account for the undeclared manmade uranium found at two sites. We believe that Syria must uphold its international obligations, including providing access to any site or information requested. And we again reiterate our full support for the IAEA’s investigation.

QUESTION: What does the U.S. think should be the next step if Syria doesn’t uphold its international obligations?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think it will depend on what their response is to it. We’ll continue to consult with our partners in the IAEA about next steps in light of their – in light of the serious nature of the findings in this report and in the previous reports. But I think whatever we do, will have to be in consultation with our partners and allies.

QUESTION: Well, what would be an adequate response, in your view, from the Syrians? I mean, are you looking for them to say, yes, you’ve caught us, we were working with the North Koreans and the Iranians secretly to build a reactor? Is that what you want them to say?

MR. KELLY: No, we want them to open up what the IAEA is asking them to open up in terms of access to sites and access to information. I’m not asking for any --

QUESTION: But haven’t –

MR. KELLY: -- declaration necessarily.

QUESTION: Well, you said that they have not made any credible explanation yet of this.

MR. KELLY: Yeah, that’s what we want – a credible explanation.

QUESTION: Well, is a credible explanation “Yes, we were colluding with the North Koreans and the Iranians to do this secretly?”

MR. KELLY: Well, I – (laughter) – a credible explanation will be allowing full access to what they’re doing.

QUESTION: Have they not allowed access?

MR. KELLY: No, not to everything that the IAEA has asked for.

Yeah.

QUESTION: You just mentioned yesterday the transit agreement and the operations team that was in Moscow working on that. Do you know if they have had any progress, and when we would hope to see these 4,500 flights start?

MR. KELLY: I don’t have an update, but since it’s now the end of the day in Moscow, we’ll see if we can get any kind of readout on it.

Yeah, in the back.

QUESTION: Any new development on the Visa Waiver Program for the citizens of Greece?

MR. KELLY: No, I don’t have any.

QUESTION: Can you take the question?

MR. KELLY: I can take that question, yeah.

QUESTION: Thank you very much.

QUESTION: Do you have anything to add to the TQ this morning on the bow?

MR. KELLY: I have nothing to add on the TQ this morning.

QUESTION: All right. And then, anything new on Bosworth yet?

MR. KELLY: No, nothing new on Bosworth yet.

QUESTION: Thank you.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:51 p.m.)

Ian Kelly

Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

1:43 p.m. EST

MR. KELLY: Okay. First of all, sorry about the delay. It seems to slide further and further every day. I do apologize. Just a quick update on schedules of various senior officials. You know the Secretary was in Shanghai today following the President’s schedule. She did have one meeting outside the President’s schedule. She met with the Shanghai vice mayor and the commissioner of the Shanghai Expo Mr. Villarreal, and they visited the U.S. Pavilion.

Special Envoy Mitchell is in London today, and he met with Israeli negotiators from the negotiating – from the Israeli negotiating team. And Deputy Secretary Steinberg has been in Jerusalem. He went to the Saban Forum, a conference, and on the margins of that he also had meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

I also want to note that today the United States and Angola are inaugurating consultative meetings under a new Strategic Partnership Dialogue that’s here at the Department of State. During Secretary Clinton’s visit to Angola August 9 and 10, she and Angolan Foreign Minister Dos Anjos agreed to jointly create a new mechanism for bilateral cooperation between the United States and Angola. The two working groups on November 16 are the first within the Strategic Partnership Dialogue. One group, security cooperation, will be chaired for the U.S. by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Donald Yamamoto from our Bureau of African Affairs. The other will address energy cooperation and will be chaired by Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Mr. David Goldwyn. This Strategic Partnership Dialogue reflects the importance of our bilateral relationship, as well as the increasing role that Angola plays in the region, in Africa, and internationally.

So with that, I’ll take your questions.

QUESTION: There’s a new IAEA report out on Iran.

MR. KELLY: Yes. Welcome back, Matt.

QUESTION: I’m not sure – sorry?

MR. KELLY: I said welcome back.

QUESTION: Oh, thank you, thank you. I’m sure you’re thrilled.

MR. KELLY: I am. I am thrilled. (Laughter.) Why wouldn't I be thrilled? (Laughter.)

QUESTION: This IAEA report – I guess it’s not out, but it – it’s not out officially, but it is out in terms of the fact that lots of people have seen it already.

MR. KELLY: Yes.

QUESTION: I’m wondering if you can tell us about what your reaction to this --

MR. KELLY: Well, first of all, we – I’d like to just reiterate our full support for this whole process. As we have throughout, we’re going to defer comment ourselves on the specifics. These – this report is intended for the Board of Governors. I take your point, Matt, that, of course, most of the details are already out, but I think you probably will appreciate that this is an important report and we want to make sure that we coordinate our response in the government, too.

I hope that we’ll have some kind of comment later on this afternoon, but certainly by tomorrow.

QUESTION: But – and here I thought the reason the briefing was delayed was because you were scrambling to put something together to tell us --

MR. KELLY: Well, I won’t deny that.

QUESTION: Why – you won’t comment now, but you might comment later this afternoon?

MR. KELLY: Yes.

QUESTION: What’s going to change between --

MR. KELLY: Well, nothing’s going to change. It’s just that we need to make sure that --

QUESTION: So, basically, you’re talking to the French and the Russians and the Brits and --

MR. KELLY: No, no, no, I mean this – even here in Washington.

QUESTION: So the White House and the NSC and --

MR. KELLY: The interagency. Yes.

QUESTION: -- other interested parties, right?

MR. KELLY: Nothing wrong with that.

Charley.

QUESTION: Unrelated subject?

MR. KELLY: Uh-huh.

QUESTION: There’s been a huge amount of attention paid to President Obama’s bow to the emperor of Japan. I was wondering if you had any reaction to that.

MR. KELLY: I don’t have any reaction to that. I mean, I’ve seen the reports on it, and I mean, I saw it for, I’m sure – for what it was intended, which is a sign of respect to the emperor. But I don’t have any reaction from the State Department on it.

QUESTION: Did the State Department play any role in terms of protocol preparing the President in how he should greet the emperor?

MR. KELLY: Well, I don’t know the specific answer to that. Of course, we do have an Office of Protocol here. But as far as preparing the President for this, I’m just not sure, frankly. I think you’d have to ask the White House.

QUESTION: There have been some comments on the web that – even calling it a sign of treason.

MR. KELLY: Well, that seems a bit extreme. I mean, again, it’s – I think it’s a natural response of the President the first time he meets the Japanese head of state to show a sign of respect. But I’m not going to try and characterize it for anything else than that.

Michel.

QUESTION: Yes. Do you have more details about Senator Mitchell’s meetings with the Israeli negotiators in London?

MR. KELLY: No, I don’t. I just – I mean, I know that they had meetings today, but I don’t have any readout of it.

QUESTION: A follow-up on this? The Palestinian Authority has asked the European Union today to back their plan to help the UN Security Council recognize an independent Palestinian state. And Saeb Erekat has said that the Palestinian Authority plan to seek U.S. approval. Will –
what’s your position toward this request?

MR. KELLY: Well, I don’t think that – I’m not aware that they have come to us seeking our opinion or our approval. I mean, our position is clear. We support the creation of a Palestinian state that is contiguous and viable. But we think that the best way to achieve that is through negotiations by the two parties. And we understand that people might be frustrated, but we would – we just, as I say, we – it is our very strong belief – we are convinced that this has to be achieved through negotiation between the two parties.

QUESTION: So you will veto any --

MR. KELLY: I’m not going to say we’re going to – I mean, I don’t – I can’t say we’re going to veto something we haven’t seen or hasn’t even been proposed yet.

QUESTION: So you support a Palestinian state, just not yet?

MR. KELLY: We support a Palestinian state that arises as the result of a process between the two parties.

QUESTION: There are a lot of people who think that this kind of a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians might be the thing that is the jolt that is needed to get the actual negotiation started. You don’t agree with that?

MR. KELLY: I don’t necessarily agree with that, no. I think that the thing we have to do is get the two parties to sit down, and that is what we’re putting all of our efforts behind. That’s what Senator Mitchell is doing in London today, and that’s what we’ve been doing throughout is to try to get them to --

QUESTION: Are you --

MR. KELLY: -- start the negotiations again.

QUESTION: Understood, but he’s been doing it for 10 months and you’ve gotten zero results.

MR. KELLY: Well, I know that 10 months sounds like a long time when it’s said out of context, but this problem has been going on for decades and it’s –

QUESTION: Well, some would say millennia. But that doesn’t change the fact of the matter that you’ve been trying just to get them to sit down with each other. I mean, not – and then they won’t even do that.

MR. KELLY: Well, like I say --

QUESTION: So you’re not even at the point where you can say that they’ve talked and haven’t been able to resolve anything. You can’t even get them to sit down at the table together.

MR. KELLY: Like I say, it’s frustrating. I mean, I don’t think anybody would deny that. But it doesn’t mean --

QUESTION: Does Mitchell --

MR. KELLY: -- we’re not committed to it.

QUESTION: Does Mitchell plan to go anywhere else?

MR. KELLY: I’m not aware of any plans to go anywhere else right now.

QUESTION: Okay. And when you said Steinberg was in Jerusalem for the Saban Forum and he met with Israeli and Palestinian officials, where did he meet with them? Who did he meet with, do you know?

MR. KELLY: I – well, they were – he met – he was – he didn’t go outside of Jerusalem, I don’t think. And I don’t have the list of people that he met with.

QUESTION: Okay. Well, is it fair to assume that his conversations were roughly the same as those – along the same lines as Mitchell?

MR. KELLY: Well, given the fact that we are committed and we are putting all of our efforts behind trying to get the two sides to sit down, I think it is pretty fair to say they had a consistent message to that end.

Yes, Lalit.

QUESTION: On Afghanistan. Ambassador Holbrooke’s trip to Berlin, Paris, and Russia, do you have any readout on it or who he --

MR. KELLY: His trip to Berlin?

QUESTION: Yeah, and Paris and Russia.

MR. KELLY: I don’t have a readout of his trip to Berlin. I do know that he is in Moscow now. And he is in Moscow to – he’s meeting with his special representative colleague, who’s Deputy Foreign Minister Borodavkin. And he’s also meeting with a number of other officials from the ministry of foreign affairs, finance, and defense. This is part of a number of consultations that Ambassador Holbrooke has had with countries that are helping us in Afghanistan, have a number of cooperative programs with Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has been wanting to go there, I know, for several months, so this is something that’s been planned for for some time, and it’s – as I say, it’s part of our – or part of his ongoing consultations with a number of countries that are involved in the effort in Afghanistan.

In addition to Ambassador Holbrooke’s meetings with senior officials, there are also U.S. technical teams in Moscow right now who are discussing with Russian counterparts assistance coordination and also implementing modalities of the transit agreement that we recently concluded with Russia. And this – these will continue, I think, through tomorrow.

QUESTION: How has that transit agreement been going for you guys?

MR. KELLY: I know what you’re referring to. The Air Transit Agreement --

QUESTION: I just got off the plane. I don’t know.

MR. KELLY: The Air Transit Agreement provided the Government of Russia with a review and comment period which has just concluded. And this is one of the reasons for the technical team going now and not earlier. And I think one of the points that we’re trying to iron out is notification processes that have to be in place. We’re also working with other countries on the transit routes since anything over-flying Russia to go to Afghanistan would have to fly over other countries as well.

And both President Obama and President Medvedev are – of course, they announced this in July, this agreement, and we anticipate that regular flights will start as soon as we’ve worked out these remaining logistical details.

QUESTION: So is Holbrooke discussing this as well?

MR. KELLY: I don’t think that’s really on his agenda. I mean, I think his agenda is not this logistical details. His agenda, I think, is a higher political level.

Yes.

QUESTION: It’s being reported today that the U.S., as part of its wider strategy in Afghanistan, is putting pressure on Pakistan to deal with the Taliban and al-Qaida. A couple of questions about that. First of all, does Pakistan have that capability? And two, couldn’t that adversely affect the civilian institutions that the U.S. says it wants to support and prop up?

MR. KELLY: Well, of course, one of the hallmarks of this Administration and our approach to this problem has been a – more of an integrated approach, not just looking at Afghanistan and Pakistan in isolation, but looking at the problem of extremism, violent extremism, in general, in the border areas. And I think we’ve seen in recent months a real commitment on the part of the Pakistani authorities to really try and tackle the problem of violent extremists within their borders, particularly in these border areas, and you’ve seen them take concrete steps to address these challenges.

At the same time, I think we recognize that this is a problem that can’t – that we can’t attack just by military means, that we need to also – we also need to deal with some of the underlying problems that give rise to this kind of extremism, and provide the people of Pakistan and the people of Afghanistan a hope for a better future, that their future lies not with extremists, but with a better and more prosperous future for their families.

QUESTION: But is the U.S. confident that Pakistan has the capability, if you’re talking about the fighters that may exist inside Pakistan’s borders right now. But what about, you know, sort of if there is an increased overflow from Afghanistan, does Pakistan still have that? Does the U.S. have the confidence that Pakistan could deal with that adequately?

MR. KELLY: I think we do. I think that we certainly have more confidence now than we did even a few months ago, before they did take some decisive action to deal with this problem within their own borders. But I think the important thing here is that we see this as a partnership, that these are shared challenges, these are problems that are in our national interests as well to tackle, and that’s why we see our role as supporting them. This is their effort, but we stand ready to support them, both on the military side, but also on the civilian side on reconstruction and economic assistance.

Yes.

QUESTION: Different issue.

MR. KELLY: Same issue? Same?

QUESTION: No.

MR. KELLY: No? Same issue?

QUESTION: The New York Times today wrote about President Obama writing a letter to Pakistani President on need for Pakistan to do more with regard to terrorism there. What else more needs – Pakistan needs to do in Pakistan?

MR. KELLY: Well, I’m not sure I saw these comments. I think – I always think there’s more that can be done, but I’m not sure exactly what their article is referring to.

QUESTION: Are you comfortable with what Pakistan is doing right now, or do you want them to do more with fighting against terrorists there inside the (inaudible)?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think we all can do more. I don’t think we should ever be satisfied when it comes to the problem of dealing with this kind of vicious terrorism that we’re seeing in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere. I think that there’s – I know that Pakistan – the authorities in Pakistan themselves are taking the challenge very seriously. How can they do otherwise when they see these kinds of horrible attacks almost every day?

QUESTION: And secondly, in the last couple of months, several individuals have been arrested in the U.S., namely several citizens here who have been trained back in training camps in Pakistan. Have you raised these issues with the Pakistani authorities of the need to close down those terrorist training camps?

MR. KELLY: Well, yeah, I think we’ve addressed this before. Yes, we have, of course, raised our concerns, and we have – we’ve briefed the Pakistani authorities about some of the information that we’ve gained from some of these suspects that have now been indicted. But I don’t have any real specific information that I can share with you.

QUESTION: Did you brief the Pakistanis, as well as the Indians?

MR. KELLY: I believe we did, yeah.

QUESTION: And finally, a couple of – before the elections in Afghanistan, the U.S. has expressed concern about one of the deputy vice president for Karzai, Fahim. Now he has been elected. He is now the vice president there. Are you comfortable with working with him, the vice president?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. I – no, I don’t have any specific information to share with you on that.

Yeah.

QUESTION: On Honduras, Senator Kerry’s – one of his spokespersons recently said that when Thomas Shannon said that the U.S. would recognize the winner of the November 29^th elections, even if Zelaya was not to be put back into power beforehand, that that was undermining the deal that had been reached? Can you respond to that?

MR. KELLY: Well, on Honduras, we, of course, are continuing to call on both sides to begin implementing the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord. One of the key parts of that is setting up a government of unity and reconciliation, and we feel that once that is set up and the other elements of the accord are implemented, that it will be easier for the international community to recognize the elections. And I think that’s the point that Tom Shannon was trying to stress in his remarks that are referred to there.

QUESTION: But doesn’t it sort of allow Micheletti to – kind of a backseat way, to still be part of the process when the U.S. has been pretty explicit that it recognizes Zelaya as the president?

MR. KELLY: We have been very explicit that we recognize the – Zelaya as the democratically elected leader of Honduras. We think that there is a good way forward that the two sides agreed to in principle, and that right now, we need to concentrate on implementing it. It establishes a solid foundation not only for a way forward with the elections on November 29, but it establishes a foundation for a reconciliation in Honduras between the two sides.

And so that’s – that is what our energies and efforts are focused on. We continue to remain in daily contact with the two sides, both through our Ambassador in Tegucigalpa, and I know that Craig Kelly is – and also in constant telephone contact with the two sides. And we just remain committed to the implementation of this accord, and we’re sticking to that.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Why do you think that Zelaya doesn’t understand this? He sent a letter to President Obama. It seems to me, or it seems that he – he’s waiting for, from the U.S. – U.S., like a message or a solution of the problem. He doesn’t understand that maybe the problem is in Honduras. How do you feel on that? Is there any sensation of the U.S. Government with this why he continues to – not to solve the problem inside instead of waiting and sending a letter to Obama?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, I’m not going to try and interpret why President Zelaya sent this letter. I’ll just say that we all along have been committed to this reconciliation process, to the restoration of the democratically and constitutionally elected leadership. And we have put a lot of effort into restoring democracy to Honduras. And we condemn the June 28 coup. We supported strong UN and OAS resolutions. We implemented tough measures, including suspension of economic and military assistance. And we have been very actively and very directly involved in a negotiated solution. So, I mean, we have been committed from the very start to this process. There hasn’t been any --

QUESTION: So the U.S. --

MR. KELLY: -- hasn’t been any change of policy.

QUESTION: The U.S. feels like the OAS secretary, that there is not much to do on the way forward with elections?

MR. KELLY: I’m not sure what you’re referring to.

QUESTION: The secretary of the Organization of American States, in his last speech on the extraordinary meeting of the session, he said that there is not much things that we can do until – wait for the elections.

MR. KELLY: Well, I’m not sure --

QUESTION: That was Insulza (inaudible).

MR. KELLY: Yeah. I haven’t seen those comments, but we – I mean, we are – we continue to be involved. We think there still is something to be done. But our efforts are on trying to get the two sides to do it, to try and get the Hondurans themselves to do it.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: No, no, no. Did Zelaya ever get a response to the letter he sent to the Secretary?

MR. KELLY: We have not sent a formal response back to President Zelaya.

QUESTION: So you just – so what is – well, what is he supposed to think? I mean, you guys are – you’re ignoring him now.

MR. KELLY: No, we’re not ignoring him. In fact --

QUESTION: Yeah, you are. He sent --

MR. KELLY: No, we’re not ignoring him.

QUESTION: He sent a letter to Secretary Clinton asking what the U.S. position was and you just said – and that was like, two weeks ago.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. That doesn’t mean we’re ignoring him, though.

QUESTION: And he has not gotten a response.

MR. KELLY: I mean, we do talk to him. I know that senior American officials do talk to him. Just because we haven’t sent a formal response yet doesn’t mean we’re ignoring him.

QUESTION: Well, it seems – well, you know, talk is one thing, but something put down on paper is quite another. And it just seems to me that you’re kind of still floundering around for a policy here --

MR. KELLY: Well --

QUESTION: -- and you’re not willing to put anything down on paper.

MR. KELLY: I don’t agree.

QUESTION: You don’t?

MR. KELLY: I don’t agree we’re floundering. I mean, we haven’t changed our policy. We have senior officials still involved in trying to get the two sides to – not to agree, but to implement something they’ve already agreed to, all right? I think we’re very – we remain very much involved in the process.

QUESTION: Can you explain why you have not replied to a letter from someone you consider to be the democratic --

MR. KELLY: I don’t think I have to. I don’t think I have to respond, Matt. We haven’t respond --

QUESTION: Well, I guess you don’t, because your silence to him says it all.

MR. KELLY: We haven’t – okay, go ahead.

QUESTION: Yeah, North Korea. Is there anything new on the Bosworth visit?

MR. KELLY: No, I don’t have anything to announce on that.

QUESTION: All right. And my last thing is today in Nairobi, Stephen Rapp, your Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes, said that you would be sending someone to the ICC as an observer. A, is that correct? B, aren’t you treading extremely close to violating the Services Protection Act doing something like this?

MR. KELLY: Yes. Mr. Rapp is correct. We will participate in these meetings as an observer and there will be an interagency delegation comprising of State Department and Defense Department officials, which will allow us to advance, use and engage all the delegations in various matters of interest to the U.S., specifically, our concerns about the definition of a crime of aggression, which is one of the main topics for discussion at this conference. This in no way suggests that we have – we don’t – we no longer have concerns about the ICC. We do have concerns about it. We have specific concerns about assertion of jurisdiction over nationals of a nonparty state and the ability to exercise that jurisdiction without authorizations by the Security Council.

Regarding possible reference to the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, there is a law that restricts our support to the ICC. But we believe and the interagency group that looked at this believes, after carefully examining it, that attending this meeting as an observer would not violate that or any other applicable law.

QUESTION: Okay. So there’s a written opinion about that?

MR. KELLY: Oh, I don’t know if this is a written opinion or not, but there is an opinion.

Jill, did you have a question?

QUESTION: Yeah. Not to beat a dead horse, but that never stops us. On this protocol issue, could you just define – like, when the President goes abroad and he knows that he’s going to meet an emperor or he’s going to meet somebody else, is he prepped on exactly what he should do? And if so, by the State Department, by his own protocol people? How does that work?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think the protocol in this case would be for me to take that question and get you the proper information, because, frankly, I know that here in the U.S., yes, the Office of Protocol is in charge of all protocol arrangements for visiting dignitaries. I do know that. But overseas, I’m not entirely sure, to be perfectly honest with you. So let’s try and get you a good response to that question.

QUESTION: Thanks.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: Thank you.

(The briefing was concluded at 2:11 p.m.)

DPB #196

Ian Kelly

Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

1:21 p.m. EST

MR. KELLY: Okay. Afternoon. It’s Friday. Let’s hope the skies part and the rains stop by Saturday. Well, just a quick – quick update on the Secretary. She, of course, has been in the Philippines for a couple of days. She’s met with senior Filipino officials, including Foreign Secretary Romulo and President Arroyo. Her meetings covered topics such as President Obama’s upcoming meetings in Singapore with the leaders of APEC and ASEAN, our close cooperation on counterterrorism, and the December Climate Change Conference in Denmark.

On her second day, which I guess was today, the Secretary held a live, televised interview with students from across the Philippines. She also met with veterans, laid a wreath at the Manila American Cemetery, and swore in 68 new Peace Corps volunteers at the U.S. Embassy. And she’s now in Singapore and she’ll represent the President at the APEC leaders meeting tomorrow, prior to the President’s arrival in Singapore. The Secretary will also hold a bilateral meeting with the Singaporean Foreign Minister Yeo on November 14, which is tomorrow. The Secretary will join the President for the U.S.-ASEAN summit meeting on November 15^th.

And that’s all I have. So I’ll take your questions.

QUESTION: Do you have any update on the timing of a Bosworth visit?

MR. KELLY: I’m afraid I don’t. We’re – we, of course, have accepted the offer, and we’re still – we still haven’t decided on an actual date. It will be soon. I would imagine, though, that it will probably the end of this month, beginning of December, but we don’t have a specific date yet.

(Inaudible.)

QUESTION: The Washington Post has published an article today about China supplying uranium to Pakistan for – nuclear uranium to Pakistan around 1982, ’83, and says U.S. knew about it. Do you have any comment on it, and how can you prevent such things happening?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, of course, we place a high – maybe the highest priority on the importance of securing nuclear materials. The President is committed to a new and stronger nonproliferation regime. Regarding this article, though, this is about something that happened in the early ’80s, I believe. And I don’t have any comment on that specific incident. But –

QUESTION: Is the U.S. concerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons coming out of Pakistan?

MR. KELLY: I think we’re always concerned about the possibility of the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials. We feel confident that the command and control of nuclear weapons in Pakistan is secure. And we don’t have any specific concerns about proliferation per se from – specifically from Pakistan.

QUESTION: Was this issue raised with China in the past about this --

MR. KELLY: This specific issue?

QUESTION: Yeah.

MR. KELLY: I don’t know. I mean, it’s --

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

MR. KELLY: -- I just don’t have that information. This was almost 30 years ago, so it’s difficult for me to say.

QUESTION: And for the – in Afghanistan, for the inauguration of the President Karzai there, is anyone going from here, except for Holbrooke – Ambassador Holbrooke?

MR. KELLY: At this time, I think – I’m sure there will be other representatives from the government who will go to the inauguration. But at this point, the only announcement that we’ve made is Ambassador Holbrooke going.

QUESTION: The ambassador there is working with the new agreement with the Afghan Government. Do you think it will be possible before the inauguration and afterwards?

MR. KELLY: Well, let me just give you kind of some context for this. We – right now, we are discussing with the Afghans how they can best achieve the goals that they’ve set for themselves with our help. And I think you’ve seen that President Karzai has laid out a number of priorities for his government in providing services for the Afghan people. These priorities are providing security, creating jobs, and generating economic growth, and delivering effective and accountable governance to the Afghan people, or fighting corruption.

This – these – as I say, these are goals that we share with the Afghan Government. And so what we’re looking to do is to help them implement these – their own priorities. I think it’s fair to say that we’re looking for a new chapter in our relationship with the Afghan Government, based on improved governance, a serious effort to eradicate corruption, and a joint effort to accelerate the training of Afghan security personnel. Because the end goal here, of course, is for the Afghans to provide for their own security and provide the kind of services that a responsive and accountable government should provide for.

QUESTION: Do you think there will be timeline for Afghan Government to work on corruption and good governance, or it’s just going on?

MR. KELLY: Well, again, this is – we’re looking for an Afghan-led process. And we believe that this is – these are important goals for any government, to be able to provide security, to be responsive to the needs of the people and be able to deliver the kind of services that they’re looking for. It’s not really for us to impose any kind of deadline. I think you’ve heard what the Secretary has said and what the President has said, that we will be looking for deeds and not just words. And this is – these are important issues, and we’d look for them to act very quickly to implement. But again, the important thing is that this is a process that they own. This has got to be done by Afghans for Afghans. But we stand ready to help them as they go through this important process.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Japanese Government is considering to limit – curtail the allocations, so-called sympathy budget, which covers part of the expenses of U.S. military forces in Japan. Do you have any reaction to that?

MR. KELLY: I’m afraid I don’t. But we’ll see if we can get information on that.

QUESTION: Are you aware of that report?

MR. KELLY: No, I’m afraid I’m not. But we’ll see if we can get you more information.

In the back, yeah.

QUESTION: Thank you. North Korea is threatening to take military action against South Korea ahead of President Obama’s visit to Seoul next week. What did you say?

MR. KELLY: Well, we would urge North Korea to avoid – to refrain, that is, from that kind of bellicose rhetoric and, in general, avoid any kind of provocative actions that would further inflame the tension in the region.

Yes.

QUESTION: Me?

MR. KELLY: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: On Latin America?

MR. KELLY: Okay.

QUESTION: Colombia today informed the OAS and the – I think the United Nations on what it considers a provocative remark from the side of Venezuela. I would like to know what is your position on that? Are you in a way – are you in the position to try to foster dialogue between Colombia and Venezuela, or with the United States and Venezuela? I don’t know what is the level of dialogue between both countries.

MR. KELLY: Well, we, of course, are – we, of course, believe it is in the interests of every country in the hemisphere to promote dialogue and to promote a peaceful resolution to any kind of conflicts. It is a – it is something for the two countries to work out, of course. But the United States, of course, is interested in promoting stability and promoting dialogue.

QUESTION: But is this something that you are wary of, that something could happen between both countries?

MR. KELLY: Well, of course, we would like to see more stability, more dialogue. We support Colombia’s recent calls for dialogue that would help overcome some of these tensions that have arisen over some of the statements of the leaders down there. And I would say that we, of course, are ready to work collaboratively with the countries in the region to promote peaceful solutions to the disputes in the region.

QUESTION: Could you please qualify what is the level of dialogue between the U.S. Government and Venezuela?

MR. KELLY: Well, it’s – I don’t think I’m really prepared to talk about the level of dialogue, except to say that we encourage more, that we encourage the kind of dialogue that would be productive and meaningful and would lead to a lessening of tension and a resolution of the conflicts. And we would call on all sides to, again, lower the level of rhetoric and sit down and start coming up with some practical approaches to resolving the conflict and reducing the tension.

One more in the back? Yeah.

QUESTION: Thank you. Do you think North Korea’s provocation has something to do with President Obama’s visit to Seoul?

MR. KELLY: Which provocation are you talking about?

QUESTION: The threat to take military action against South Korea.

MR. KELLY: Well, I would not try and characterize why North Korea has said what it has said, except to say that we, of course, are working towards a resumption of a multilateral forum to – that would lead to a lessening of tensions in the region. And – but I’m not going to try and connect what they’re doing with any other events in the region.

Yeah.

QUESTION: President Ahmadinejad made a comment yesterday that the U.S. must choose between Israel or being friends – have dialogue with Iran or have dialogue with Israel. Can it be something like that? Did you hear that comment?

MR. KELLY: No, I haven’t heard that comment. Israel is a very, very close friend of the U.S., and we don’t think we have to choose between Israel or any other country. We want to have productive, meaningful relations with all countries in the region.

Thank you.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:34 p.m.)

Ian Kelly

Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

1:37 p.m. EST

MR. KELLY: Afternoon. First of all, a statement, or some information on Ambassador Holbrooke’s travel. He’s currently traveling to Berlin. He’s there today. He’ll be in Paris tomorrow, in Munich on November 14, and then next week he’ll be in Moscow. These are for consultations with government officials and his special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan counterparts. These routine meetings are part of continued efforts to stay in close touch with allies and partners on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He will then travel to Afghanistan for the inauguration of President Hamid Karzai.

And then just a few words on the Secretary’s schedule today. We know that she arrived in the Philippines on November 12^th and met with senior Philippine officials, including Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo. The Secretary affirmed a strong bilateral alliance, solidarity with the Filipino people following severe flooding caused by recent storms, and interest in exploring ways to expand our cooperation in the region. She announced a new tranche of relief funds – $5 million. This will go to help rebuild schools, construct new classrooms, provide 300,000 books and desks for 15,000 students. It will also help repair damaged water and sanitation systems to prevent the spread of disease, and it will help to refurbish clinics to provide medical supplies and assistance.

And with that, I’ll take your questions. Yes.

QUESTION: Would you say that the Eikenberry memos are actually at odds with what the Secretary has been saying about adding more troops?

MR. KELLY: Well, let me, first of all, just reiterate what we always say about any kind of advice or analysis that comes from ambassadors to the Secretary and to the President, that this is a privileged channel of communication. They have the right to receive this advice in a confidential way. Ambassador Eikenberry has been providing this kind of advice and analysis to the President and Secretary since he arrived. And the President really deserves the right to be able to gather all this information from all the different principals, people involved in the shaping of this policy. You know that they met yesterday. The President met with his chief advisors involved in shaping Afghan policy, and Ambassador Eikenberry participated in that discussion.

But we really have to be sure that this – that the kinds of advice that they’re giving remains confidential. That’s true for the Secretary and that’s true for Ambassador Eikenberry. So we’re just not going to get into the details of this kind of advice that they’re giving.

QUESTION: But then the point on the confidentiality, this showed up in every major American newspaper today, has been the subject of considerable discussion. This looks like a calculated leak. And my question: Is this perhaps giving the President some wiggle room, given that the Secretary is reported to want a strong level of involvement in Afghanistan’s security situation? Does this give the President some wiggle room in perhaps going with a smaller number, especially given his growing concerns and the growing public concern in the U.S. --

MR. KELLY: Well, this --

QUESTION: -- about being involved and really what the U.S. is going to get out some sort of protracted military engagement here?

MR. KELLY: Look, again, this is a very important decision. It’s a decision for the President to make. The role of the Secretary and Ambassador Eikenberry in this is to provide their point of view. This will all go into the deliberation that the President is making right now. And it’s just not something that this Department is going to go into. Where the Secretary comes down on this issue, that is her private, confidential advice for the President. And I’m going to honor that.

QUESTION: But it is pretty hard to say that it’s confidential when readers in Los Angeles can read this, when readers in London can read this, when readers across the Middle East can see all this happening. It does look very calculated, and it does send a signal, some would argue, that perhaps the President is going back on his campaign year promise to fight the right war.

MR. KELLY: Well, the President hasn’t made any kind of decision yet. The deliberation process continued yesterday, and we can’t make any comments on what – where this is going to come out because the President hasn’t made the decision.

QUESTION: Also on Afghanistan, Secretary Gates has told reporters on his way onto travel that apparently the President is interested in taking the best out of the four options that were discussed in yesterday’s meeting. Is the Secretary of the same mind that perhaps a hybrid of these recommendations might be the way forward?

MR. KELLY: Well, I’ll just repeat what I just said. We’re just not going to get into what kind of advice that the Secretary is giving the President.

QUESTION: On Ambassador Holbrooke?

MR. KELLY: Ambassador Holbrooke? Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: He was trying to travel to India. Is the travelers are still there, or what’s the problem? Or is he going to wait now for the prime minister to get to arrive in Washington?

MR. KELLY: I just said that the only travel that he has planned right now is Berlin, Paris, Moscow, Kabul. He doesn’t have any other travel planned at this time. Of course, we all look forward to the visit of the prime minister later this month. And I know that preparations are well underway to ensure a good, substantive schedule for him.

QUESTION: One more on India, if you don’t mind.

MR. KELLY: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: Since still India is in high alert as far as terrorism is concerned, due to those two arrested in Chicago. Under FBI surveillance, they were planning or they still had plans to attack India beyond Mumbai. I know when prime minister comes here, all these issues will be discussed, but what I’m asking you: Is there a way U.S. or FBI is helping India in this connection - getting those information out before plans to conceal, as far as an alert is concerned?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Goyal, I don’t know the answer to your very specific question. I do know that we have – there exist channels for us to share information. And I know that the Government of India has been briefed on this case. And of course, the safety of American citizens and Indian citizens is always paramount on our minds. And – but I don’t have a specific answer to your very specific question.

Yeah. Indira.

QUESTION: Just to follow up on Eikenberry, not specifically on this – on this or these memos that have been written about today. But earlier in the year, he had requested more civilian employees and, I believe, a doubling of the amount of money that was going to be put aside by President Obama for the civilian effort. Can you tell me a little bit about the update on increasing the civilian people in Afghanistan and the money?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know – I think as you remember, Deputy Secretary Lew briefed you on the Department’s plans to increase the number of U.S. civilians in Afghanistan. We want to triple the number, taking as a baseline January 2009. We’re on track to meet this goal. The whole strategy is specifically designed to help build Afghan capacity to – for having better governance, to promote the rule of law, and fight corruption. And it’s important to understand that this is being done not just at the national level, but it’s also at the sub-national level out in the regions. Many of my colleagues will be out in the provinces.

The decision on troop levels is not really related to this effort that we’re undergoing now to triple the number of civilians in Afghanistan. We plan to implement this plan of tripling the number. The only thing that would be affected would be where the civilians would be located, because we have to match where my colleagues go with where the numbers of troops are located. But this process is continuing apace and isn’t necessarily – the overall numbers are not affected by the deliberations going on now about the –

QUESTION: Only insofar as Eikenberry, supposedly one of his complaints was that there hasn’t been enough of a civilian ramp-up, and that he felt that more of a troop ramp-up would be inappropriate at a time when the civilian effort had not been given a chance to fully ramp up.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: So that’s the way in which I see them linked. That’s what I’m asking. And also, the amounts that Eikenberry had asked for were above and beyond what Obama had announced back in May as part of his --

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- budget that came out in early May, so is this tripling beyond? Because Lew had also briefed us on May 8^th when the budget came out about, you know, what the civilian figures were going to be overall in the Department.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Has that tripling figure increased from what was planned at that time?

MR. KELLY: Well, the tripling figure is using existing budget resources. We have received this request from Ambassador Eikenberry to increase this kind of assistance and this kind of presence beyond the level that we’re talking about here. And of course, we’re going to work closely with Ambassador Eikenberry. We also will have to work closely with Congress because this will, of course, entail additional resources as well.

QUESTION: If I can – I guess I was just trying to clarify – sorry. Because the tripling initially you guys had talked about a doubling. Holbrooke’s office had initially talked about a doubling of the civilians to be – come to about 1,000 by the end of this year.

MR. KELLY: Right.

QUESTION: And then when Lew briefed recently, he talked about a tripling.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: So I’m just wondering, is that --

MR. KELLY: I think it all depends on what your base level is. If you say tripling, you’re going back to January; doubling is probably more recent times. I mean, I don’t know exactly what the baseline was.

QUESTION: Okay.

QUESTION: Okay, now I have a battery of questions about what’s going on in Latin America. One thing is Honduras, that we can talk, because two days ago there was a mission from the U.S. that visit Zelaya. Maybe you have some update? How is Zelaya, the situation there going on?

And the other thing is that also next week is going to be in Brazil Ahmadinejad. He’s going to be the 23^rd in Brazil. Lula is becoming like a negotiator. He wants to do that between the Middle East countries. I want to know if the U.S. has been in touch with Brazil about this, especially for the Americans that are now in Iran. Maybe Lula can help in that.

MR. KELLY: Well, first of all, on Honduras, as you know, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Craig Kelly was in Tegucigalpa the last few days. He’s now returned. His goal down there was to urge both parties to sit down and implement the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord, which they’ve already committed to do, of course, on October 30^th. He met with President Zelaya, he met with Mr. Micheletti, and he also met with representatives of the Verification Commission.

I think the message that he had was that it’s really – it’s up to the Hondurans to implement this agreement that they’ve already actually agreed to, and this is in the interest of Honduras. Our role in this is to support this process. There are right now still smart, patriotic, and pragmatic Hondurans who are working towards the implementation of this accord. And as I say, we support those efforts and we want to give those efforts a chance to succeed.

QUESTION: Did he receive any special message from Zelaya?

MR. KELLY: Sorry?

QUESTION: Did he receive any requests from Zelaya? He’s living there in the Brazilian Embassy. He’s still in a lot of pressure with --

MR. KELLY: Yeah. I understand that he’s still at the Brazilian Embassy. I just – this – as I said before, this is a Honduran process. It’s not an American process. And we just want to support this. And there are people down there – there are Hondurans who are working hard on this, and we just want to give that a chance to succeed.

Regarding the visit of Mr. Ahmadinejad to Brazil, I don’t really have any information about that. We would hope that in any bilateral meetings that they had with Mr. Ahmadinejad that they would stress the importance of Iran living up to its international obligations, of giving the IAEA a response to this proposal to enrich uranium outside Iran, which is in the interests of the international community and the interests of Iran.

And finally, I would hope – yes, I hope that they would – the Brazilians would raise this case of American citizens who are being detained in Iran.

Yeah. Andy.

QUESTION: A follow-up on Honduras? Is that --

MR. KELLY: A follow on Honduras?

QUESTION: Just following up on Iran --

QUESTION: Go ahead.

QUESTION: Just a real quick one. We’ve been getting reports from Vienna that the IAEA believes that Iran has very seriously slowed down its enrichment processes now, and they’re not quite sure why. I was wondering if the U.S. has been apprised of this, if you guys have the same or similar information. And I’m looking just to update us on where things stand with the offer and the Iranian response.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Regarding the first question, I think all I can say is that we’ve seen those reports and I don’t really have any information to add to those press reports. Regarding the IAEA, we’re at the same place we were yesterday and the day before, and that’s that we’re still waiting for Iran to respond to the proposal of the director general to enriched uranium outside of Iran.

QUESTION: A follow-up on Honduras. What does the U.S. think about the human rights situation there right now? There have been mass arrests, curfews, an emergency decree, and a ban on protests and media closures for three weeks during the presidential campaign. Does that undermine the electoral process, in the view of the U.S.?

MR. KELLY: Regarding the – well, first of all, our real priority here is to see this accord implemented step by step. We’ve only gotten through step one, and we need step two and step three to be implemented.

Regarding the – these reports, I’m actually not aware of these reports of any actions to – you say ban rallies and – no, I’m not just aware of those reports. I think that we would need to have more details about it for us to really comment on it.

And I’m sorry, what was – you had another question, too?

QUESTION: Well, it was just related to the – whether that undermines – whether the restrictions undermine the election. There’s a U.S. congresswoman who’s going to be talking about this in Tegucigalpa tomorrow, so I assume she’s going to be talking about the human rights situation.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, we support the elections process there. We have provided technical assistance. I think that we want, the Honduran people want, the countries of the region want a – free, fair, and transparent elections. And these elections will be important to restoring democratic and constitutional order in Honduras, but elections in and of themselves do not guarantee national reconciliation, which is another important goal. And that’s why the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord includes provision for a government of national unity and a truth commission. And I’d just go back to what I said before. The important thing is that we implement this accord, and that’s what our main focus is right now.

QUESTION: Zelaya has seemingly made that link between the two, and he is calling on the U.S. to not recognize the outcome of the elections if the San Jose Accords were not realized by November 29^th. Does the U.S. agree that there are going to be diplomatic problems, or should be diplomatic problems, if he is not the sitting president on November 29^th?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, again, we want the restoration of the democratic and constitutional order in Honduras. There are a number of ways to get to it, and there are – these steps are outlined in the accord, and an important part of this is for these elections to be internationally recognized. And I think that in order to ensure that, ensure that kind of outcome of internationally recognized election results, the two parties have to implement this accord. And this is what we’re focused on. And as I said, there are Hondurans who are hard at work right now trying to get a resolution to this problem, and we just need to give them time to work this out, to find a Honduran solution to this Honduran problem.

QUESTION: Is – are you saying that the U.S. would recognize the outcome of that election even if the San Jose Accord was not implemented? If in the U.S.’s judgment --

MR. KELLY: There was a lot --

QUESTION: -- the elections --

MR. KELLY: A lot of “woulds” and “ifs” in that sentence. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Yeah, I knew that. But still, you know, we’re coming on three weeks now. Is it a legitimate election if the current government has been supplanted by an interim military-backed government?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, it’s in everybody’s interest that these elections are seen as free, fair, transparent, and enjoy international recognition.

QUESTION: So that just wipes the slate clean over the past five months?

MR. KELLY: Well, they need to be recognized as free, fair, transparent. There are also – we also need to address this question of national unity and reconciliation. There’s been a fracture in the Honduran body politic, and we need to repair that. And that’s what this accord does. And that’s – again, I’ll just say it again, that’s what we’re focused on is the – this accord.

QUESTION: Will there be discussions in the American Organization of States about this? Because some countries in the meeting extraordinary that they had two days ago, they said that they will not recognize the election if Zelaya’s not in power?

MR. KELLY: Well, I know that there are people from the OAS who are – who are involved in the Verification Commission. There are senior OAS staff members who are in Tegucigalpa there to help facilitate an accord. I would just urge everybody to keep focused on that, getting the accord implemented.

Charlie.

QUESTION: Change of subject, if we can. Do you have anything more on Ambassador Bosworth’s travel plans?

MR. KELLY: Well, the short answer is no. (Laughter.) We’ve told the North Koreans –P.J. said this on Tuesday – that we’re prepared for Ambassador Bosworth and a small interagency team to go to Pyongyang. I don’t have anything to announce. But I think it’s – I mean, it’s fair to say that it will happen fairly soon.

Andy.

QUESTION: Just one on the Central Elections Commission in Palestinian territories has suggested that their January elections should be postponed, and I gather President Abbas has accepted that recommendation. Do you have any – what does the U.S. feel about that? Is that a good idea? Does that increase the likelihood that we’ll get a solid negotiating partner in the peace talks, or does it decrease it?

MR. KELLY: Well, it’s really – it’s up to the Palestinians themselves to decide when the best time is to have these elections. I think the key here – I mean, it sounds like somebody who repeats talking points, but the key here is that it’s an election that reflects the political will of the Palestinian people. And if they have decided that they need to have more time to do that, I think it’s really their decision to do it. And of course, we support the process, the democratic process and the Palestinian Authority.

QUESTION: Can you tell more about the Netanyahu meeting that night in the White House? Because there was no – not much comments --

MR. KELLY: I refer you to the White House for a --

QUESTION: No, (inaudible), nothing. Hmm?

MR. KELLY: I refer you to the White House for --

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. KELLY: -- any issues regarding a meeting in the White House.

Goyal.

QUESTION: Just a quite different – go ahead. You have a follow-up?

QUESTION: No.

QUESTION: A quite different question, diplomatic viewpoint, military man who is accused of killing 13 people, Hasan, how is it affecting as far as State Department’s concern dealing with the Muslim world, and are you getting any feedback from the Muslim communities? Because it may be affecting the U.S. image and also as far as if you see any more in the U.S. Government like that and how are you going to deal with it, because Secretary of State had a message for the Muslim world, the President had a message for the Muslim world. So any change you think had occurred, or what’s the future?

MR. KELLY: Well, the U.S. military community is a large community, a very large community and --

QUESTION: I mean – I’m sorry, I don’t mean in the military, but all over the --

MR. KELLY: Yeah. No, I’m just saying that it’s a large community and it’s a very diverse community, and I would just discourage you from extrapolating too much from the actions of one troubled man. It’s not necessarily reflective of the feelings of the U.S. military of any – it’s not reflective of any kind of underlying trend in the U.S. military. Our position vis-à-vis the Muslim world remains the same. It’s the vision that was laid out in the President’s speech in Cairo. We want a new, more inclusive relationship with the Muslim world. And I don’t think anybody should draw any conclusions about the tragic events in – at Fort Hood.

QUESTION: I have been talking to many Muslims in the area. Many feel that it might backlash as far as their jobs and their existence concerning the U.S. Government and also in the streets.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, I mean, we had a lot of concerns about these kinds of issues after September 11, 2001. And it just means that we need to work hard to be inclusive, to encourage tolerance and to encourage dialogue.

QUESTION: Is there anything more that Miss Pandith is having to do or is asking her staff to do, in light of the Fort Hood shootings --

MR. KELLY: That’s a – yeah.

QUESTION: -- to perhaps reach out to other nations and indicate what you were just saying, that right now everyone is treating this as an isolated incident?

MR. KELLY: Yeah, I mean, that really – that whole vision, the vision of Cairo speech, underlies her whole mission, her mission of outreach to Muslim communities. And that’s a good question. I’ll see if I can get an update on her activities.

QUESTION: If you could.

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Indira.

QUESTION: I have a couple of Ethiopia questions.

MR. KELLY: Ethiopia questions.

QUESTION: Yeah. Has the State Department or USAID investigated claims by the country’s opposition, including a former president and defense minister that some of the $850 million in food and anti-poverty aid from the U.S. is being distributed on the basis of political favoritism by the current prime minister’s party? And then, also when the Secretary met with the Ethiopian foreign minister last week, did she bring up the issue of the jailed opposition leader Birtukan Mideksa, and did she express any concerns about the fairness of the outcoming Ethiopian elections in May?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, regarding the assistance, we’re committed to assisting people in need all over the world. And we provide humanitarian assistance that is politically neutral, socially impartial, and based on people’s needs, rather than on political factors. And we’re, of course, aware of these reports that you raise, Indira, about the politicization of humanitarian assistance in Ethiopia. Regarding that, let me say that we have monitoring systems in place to prevent or expose such activities, which we are continually reviewing and working to improve. Personnel from U.S. Embassy in Addis are increasing their field visits to observe how the assistance is distributed, and they’re aware of these allegations, so they’re conducting these monitoring activities specifically with these allegations in mind. We are committed to the people of Ethiopia and ensuring that our humanitarian assistance does reach those most in need.

In fiscal year 2008, the U.S. provided $934 million in overall assistance to Ethiopia, of which $479 million was humanitarian assistance. The fiscal year 2009 numbers will be available at the end of the calendar year. This – the meeting last week, I was not in that meeting, but I understand that a full range of issues were discussed. And in general, human rights are at the center of our bilateral dialogues with Ethiopia.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: Thanks.

(The briefing was concluded at 2:07 p.m.)

DPB # 194

# # #

Philip J. Crowley

Assistant Secretary
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

1:10 p.m. EST

MR. CROWLEY: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Department of State. I’ve got several announcements before taking your questions. First of all, Secretary Clinton has arrived in Singapore, where she will participate in the coming days in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation ministerial meetings. The APEC ministerial meetings will be focused on strengthening the multilateral trading system, progress on regional economic integration, and strategies to foster inclusive and sustainable growth in APEC member economies.

Then she’ll move on to the Philippines and return to Singapore for the U.S.-ASEAN summit meeting where she’ll join President Obama and focus on encouraging regional peace and security, strengthening economic cooperation, and cooperating on regional and global issues such as economic development, environmental protection, and nonproliferation.

Secondly, as – President Obama and Secretary Clinton, after careful consideration and extensive consultation among our allies and partners, we have told the – we’ve told North Korea that we are prepared for Ambassador Bosworth and a small interagency team to visit Pyongyang at an appropriate time not yet determined. Ambassador Bosworth’s discussions in Pyongyang will take place in the context of the Six-Party Talks. From our standpoint, the purpose will be to facilitate an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks and to secure North Korea’s reaffirmation of the September 2005 joint statement of the Six-Party Talks, including verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.

Following up on the President’s meeting last evening with Prime Minister Netanyahu, this morning, George Mitchell had further discussions with the Defense Minister Ehud Barak. They just finished a short time ago. And this is on top of meetings he had yesterday with Israeli advisors Mike Hertzog and Yitzhak Molcho.

And finally, before taking your questions, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Craig Kelly has arrived in Tegucigalpa today to continue working with the parties and the verification commission. He’ll be there today and tomorrow, focused on trying to move the process forward towards a free and fair election and the seating of a new government in Honduras at the end of this month.

And with that, Bob.

QUESTION: Would the Kelly visit include a delivery of a direct message from President Obama about the situation?

MR. CROWLEY: If he has – if he’s carrying such a message, we’ll let him deliver that first before talking about it.

QUESTION: And when is that coming up?

MR. CROWLEY: But certainly, we – it’s important for us to continue to support the OAS process and to push for full implementation of the San Jose and Tegucigalpa accords which provide a pathway to a free and fair election. And the outcome, which if handled properly, can be supported both within Honduras and within the region. And obviously, we continue – we’ll continue to kind of push both sides to live up to the agreement that they reached recently, and to continue to move forward towards the election on November 29.

QUESTION: And I’m sure you’re aware of the protesters out front who are saying that this is a sham election.

MR. CROWLEY: Yes, I heard them myself. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Has anyone from the State Department met with the representatives of the protestors or taken a letter from them, or what is your --

MR. CROWLEY: Not to my knowledge.

QUESTION: Or any response to the protestors saying it’s a sham election?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, first of all, on that point, we have been earnestly pushing to get a resolution of this issue so that you could have, in fact, a free and fair election on November 29 that both the United States, Honduras, the region could stand behind, support, and lead to the installation of a new government that the people of Honduras can support and can heal this divide that has --

QUESTION: Why is --

MR. CROWLEY: -- that Honduras has suffered through over several months. We understand that this is a very emotional issue and – which is why we’ve been so integrally involved; not only Craig Kelly, but Tom Shannon, others, our support for the OAS process going back a number of months, because we recognize that the only path out of this is through an electoral process that – where we’re – the people of Honduras get to speak and you have a new government that can go about the work of serving the needs of its people.

Go ahead.

QUESTION: Why does restoring Zelaya to power a couple of weeks before the election make it more likely credible?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I think what’s first and foremost important is that you get to a new election on November 29 that the people of Honduras can participate in, that is free and fair, that’s effectively monitored by the international community. We, the United States, are prepared to help in that effort. But there is an accord, there is an agreement. As part of that agreement, the existing institutions within Honduras will determine how to implement that accord. We certainly encourage and continue to encourage.

One of the reasons Craig Kelly is there is to push both sides to take the steps that they promised to take. One of those steps, working with the congress, is what to do about the existing government. But we will continue to show our support for the verification commission and continue to encourage both sides to live up to their responsibilities. Now, part of that is to establish a unified government that can work through the transition until the election takes place and a new government is put in place.

Charlie.

QUESTION: Do you have an issue in --

MR. CROWLEY: Let’s – go ahead.

QUESTION: The – today’s meeting at the OAS, most of the countries, they say they are not going to recognize electoral results, also the Group of Rio. How do you see the way out for Zelaya?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I don’t think we see a way out for Zelaya per se. We obviously – he has an interest and we have over several months wanted to see the return and restoration of constitutional order. It’s not about any one person. It’s about a return of democratic processes and democratic government in Honduras. It’s an important aspect to us of continuing to support democracy within the hemisphere.

As to what will – obviously, the accords that both sides agreed to recently through the intervention of the United States and under the leadership of Tom Shannon, they have set forth a path to a new election. We need to see both sides working to – on that path, taking affirmative steps so that you can produce a free and fair election that’s effectively monitored, that produces a credible result for the Honduran people.

As to what will happen on November 29, I think it’s important to put these steps and these processes in place so that you can have confidence in the electoral process and the result. But obviously, on November 29 when the election takes place, we’ll be able to evaluate what happened and then what the consequences are.

QUESTION: But the electoral process continues to moving forward, yes?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, we want to see the electoral process move forward. We want to see this be done in a way that ensures a free and fair election. We are prepared to support this effort, along with other countries within the OAS and – but obviously, we’re coming up on two to three weeks before that election. A lot of work has to be done between now and then.

QUESTION: I have a second one or a third one on Colombia and Venezuela, the raising tensions.

MR. CROWLEY: We’ll come back to that.

QUESTION: In your statement on North Korea, if I heard you correctly, you said you – that one of the purposes is to have North Korea reaffirm what it signed in ’05.

MR. CROWLEY: Yes.

QUESTION: Is that a precondition to resuming the Six-Party Talks? What if they just said let’s go back to the Six-Party Talks and just go --

MR. CROWLEY: And? (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Is that okay or would that be all right if they just said, we’re ready to go back to Beijing, or do they need to reaffirm what they signed?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, we believe that the only path forward for North Korea is to rejoin the Six-Party Talks. In rejoining the Six-Party Talks, our purpose is obviously to get them to take the affirmative steps that they previously agreed to in 2005 for the peaceful denuclearization of the North Korean – of the Korean Peninsula. We are not going to reward North Korea simply for returning to the Six-Party Talks. We will be looking to see if they are prepared to take the kinds of affirmative steps that they had previously agreed to.

I think it’s also worthwhile to take a step back. And I mean, this is – we are very clear-eyed about this. North Korea has a history of coming back to negotiations and expecting to be rewarded just for simply coming back for discussions. We’re not here to talk for talk’s sake, we’re here to see specific results by North Korea. But this is the result of very patient but very deliberate action by the United States, by the State Department, going back to the beginning of the Obama Administration.

We’ve made a point of intensively collaborating with our partners in the region from the Secretary, to the Deputy Secretary, to Steve Bosworth, Phil Goldberg, others, to Kurt Campbell. We’ve been in the region on a near-continual basis over several months in response to the provocations that North Korea had earlier this year in terms of missile tests and the nuclear test. We built a strong unified front within the Security Council. We saw passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1874.

And through multiple trips to the region, Ambassador Goldberg has been intensively working with countries in the region for implementation of 1874. And we have to believe that North Korea has felt some of that pressure. So you’ve seen a shift in their strategy, the so-called charm offensive that they have engaged in for the past couple of months.

But clearly, we are very realistic about our expectations, and we come to this meeting prepared to engage North Korea within the context of the Six-Party process. But obviously, the bottom line here is that North Korea has to take affirmative steps towards denuclearization. That remains our core objective in our policy towards North Korea.

QUESTION: And all of that said, you didn’t answer the question whether it’s --

MR. CROWLEY: But it was a fine answer. (Laughter.) All right.

QUESTION: Whether their reaffirmation of the 2005 agreement they signed is a precondition to going back to the Six-Party Talks.

MR. CROWLEY: In the careful consideration that we’ve given to accepting this offer of a meeting, we have made clear to North Korea, and we believe that North Korea understands, what the purpose of the meeting is. I mean, the Six-Party process is not an objective in and of itself. It is what we believe to be the best means to an end, which is a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. So the return of North Korea to a Six-Party process is not an end in itself. It’s a means to an end.

So what we’re looking for as we conduct this discussion is: first, to bring them back into the process; and then second, to seek a reaffirmation of their commitment under the 2005 joint statement, which, in fact, calls for affirmative steps that they would take. So what are we focused on? We’re focused on getting to North Korea making that commitment, taking those steps, and moving down a different path.

QUESTION: Just to follow up --

MR. CROWLEY: All right. Let me try it again. (Laughter.) I’m not sure --

QUESTION: It’s closer. It’s closer.

QUESTION: Just to follow up, since APEC meeting will be taking – in the region, President and Secretary and all those leaders will be there. This issue has been going on for many, many years as far as North Korea issue is concerned, nuclear missile tests and all that. And regional countries are in doubt that if anything will be done because it’s been a long time, like Japan and other regional countries are really threatened by this issue.

Now, which side of China is now on, the U.S. side or North Korea side? Because they are close ally and they supply almost everything to North Korea.

MR. CROWLEY: Well, Goyal, I would say that in the heart of your question is – there’s a common interest here. And I think that there is, in fact, unprecedented unanimity among not only the members of the Six-Party process, but also others in the region. This was a significant topic of discussion when the Secretary was in the region during the summer participating in the ASEAN Regional Forum.

Everyone is concerned about the situation in North Korea. Everyone is concerned about the prospect of a nuclear arms race in the region, which will help no one. Everyone wants to see North Korea take a more constructive path and – in the region. And I think this is, in fact, what has brought North Korea to the position where they are prepared to have a discussion, and we hope that they are prepared to take the kinds of affirmative steps that we have called for and the international community has called for.

But the onus is obviously on North Korea. They will have to make this fundamental choice as to whether they are prepared to give up their nuclear program and move in a more constructive direction. We hope so, but we are approaching this meeting very cautiously, with a very clear-eyed view of the past.

QUESTION: And this issue – I’m sorry. This issue will come again during APEC and also President’s and Secretary’s visit to China?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, as to the specifics of when the meeting will take place, we’re still in discussion with North Korea working out the logistics. I would not expect this meeting to take place while the President is in – and the Secretary are in the region.

QUESTION: And do you have an approximate date for us? Is it going to be early December?

MR. CROWLEY: I would say as an expectation, sometime between now and the end of the year.

QUESTION: North Korea again. North Korea demand peace treaty with the United States for them give up the nuclear weapons?

MR. CROWLEY: I think it’s very important that – again, put this meeting in context. This meeting is about returning North Korea to the Six-Party process and getting a commitment from them to take the kinds of affirmative steps that were called for in the 2005 joint statement. This is not the beginning of a bilateral dialogue. That is separate from the Six-Party process.

Now, as we’ve said many, many times, if North Korea takes the kind of steps that they’ve committed to in the past, other possibilities open up. But first and foremost, the purpose of this meeting is to get them back into the Six-Party process and move them down a path towards denuclearization. Other things can happen after that, but that’s what we’re focused on right now.

QUESTION: So you are not going to have a bilateral meet – negotiation?

MR. CROWLEY: The bilateral – the meeting that we have agreed to have is within the context of the Six-Party process. It is not a bilateral meeting per se. It’s not a separate track. It’s inside the Six-Party process. It’s to encourage them to come back to the Six-Party process and take the kinds of steps that they previously committed to.

QUESTION: So would you tell me more about the meeting of the – in the context of Six-Party Talks?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, we want to see – we believe, as we’ve said many, many times, that the Six-Party process is the most effective mechanism to resolve the issues that we have with North Korea, and the region has with North Korea, and to focus on getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program.

QUESTION: But I think you mentioned that you are going to have a discussion with North Korea in the context of Six-Party Talks this time.

MR. CROWLEY: Right.

QUESTION: Right. So --

MR. CROWLEY: I’ll – let me try it again.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. CROWLEY: Ambassador Bosworth, at some point to be determined, will travel with a small interagency team to Pyongyang. The purpose of this meeting is to encourage North Korea to return to the Six-Party process, to recommit to the 2005 joint statement, and to take the kind of affirmative and irreversible steps called for in that statement towards denuclearization, peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. That is the sole purpose of this meeting.

QUESTION: Do you believe North Korea for sure will come back to Six-Party Talks?

MR. CROWLEY: We believe that North Korea understands the purpose of the meeting. What they’re prepared to do, let’s have the meeting.

QUESTION: What does the North Korea demand for them return to the Six-Party Talks? What does North Korea demand for them return to Six-Party Talks?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I mean, I’ll leave it to North Korea to describe what they are prepared to do, but our purpose in agreeing to the meeting is very clear.

Kirit.

QUESTION: Just to ask it a different way, in the past, the Secretary and others have said that the U.S. would only accept its invitation if they agreed to return to the Six-Party Talks. So what has changed? I mean, can you give us a sense of how and when that change – did you receive some assurance that they would return?

MR. CROWLEY: I’m not sure I would describe it that way. We are prepared – and again, going back, we’ve had extended, intensive, multiple conversations with our partners and allies within the Six-Party process. And we’ve had these meetings while there have been a variety of statements out of North Korea about what they might or might not be prepared to do.

But North Korea indicated to us some time ago that they were willing to have a meeting, and after careful consideration and consultations with the other parties in the Six-Party process, we believe that this meeting can be useful. And the sole intention of the meeting is to encourage North Korea to come back to the Six-Party process. We’re not going to predict what North Korea is going to do, but we’re willing to have this discussion in the context of the Six-Party process to see if they’re willing to come back and willing to take the kinds of steps that we’ve talked about.

QUESTION: Have they indicated that to you at all?

MR. CROWLEY: Have they indicated?

QUESTION: That they were willing?

MR. CROWLEY: We think they understand fully what we see as the primary purpose of the meeting.

QUESTION: Can you compare this issue with the Iranian issue? Because these are the two issues really going on.

MR. CROWLEY: Compare them in what sense?

QUESTION: Both are not (inaudible) taking steps that you are telling – same thing to the Iranians, same thing telling to North Koreans.

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I mean, I --

QUESTION: And both are nuclear – going after nuclear.

MR. CROWLEY: I would say North Korea presents a unique challenge. Iran presents a unique challenge. I wouldn’t think that lessons from one necessarily carry over to the other. Obviously, we are willing to engage North Korea, we are willing to engage Iran, because of our broad concern about proliferation issues around the world.

It is taking the vision that President Obama laid out in his Prague speech early this year that Secretary Clinton added to in her recent speech at USIP, and simply saying that we want to avoid an arms race in Asia, we want to avoid an arms race in the Middle East, we want to see the world writ large begin to reduce the importance that we give to nuclear weapons, to start to move more affirmatively and ultimately towards a world in which there are no nuclear weapons. So this is putting into concrete form the vision that President Obama laid out early this year.

Samir.

QUESTION: New topic?

MR. CROWLEY: Sure.

QUESTION: Same issue, sorry.

MR. CROWLEY: Okay, I’ll come back.

QUESTION: Can you tell us when this was formally told to North Korea, and if it was told before today, what the meeting --

MR. CROWLEY: It was told before today.

QUESTION: Then what was the – what do you think – do you have any comment on this skirmish between the North Korean and South Korean navies?

MR. CROWLEY: I’ll defer to – I mean, these kinds of incidents have happened in the past. I’ll defer to South Korea on these issues.

Go ahead.

QUESTION: You said you weren’t going to reward North Korea for coming back to the Six-Party Talks, and North Korea is, like you said, already aware of what you want them to do. So how are you going to encourage them to come back to the Six-Party Talks without giving them anything?

MR. CROWLEY: (Laughter.) I’m not sure I understand the question.

QUESTION: What’s the --

MR. CROWLEY: The purpose of the meeting is to say if you have any hope of a different relationship with the world, a different relationship with the region, a different relationship with the United States, then this is what you have to do.

QUESTION: But you have told that to them previously, right?

MR. CROWLEY: Sure, which is why – I mean, we’re – we come into this with a clear understanding and a realistic view of what North Korea has done in the past. They’ve been on the cusp of taking affirmative action along these lines before, and they’ve chosen the wrong path before. But obviously, this is very, very important to regional security, it’s very, very important to our national interest, which is why we continue this effort and we’ll continue to encourage North Korea to move in a different direction than it has.

Samir.

QUESTION: Yes. You said Senator Mitchell had talks with the prime minister today and Israeli --

MR. CROWLEY: No, I didn’t say that. Just to clarify, the President had a meeting with the prime minister last night. Senator Mitchell had meetings with Israeli advisors Mike Hertzog and Yitzhak Molcho yesterday. He had a meeting this morning with the Minister of Defense Ehud Barak.

QUESTION: I’m sorry. Is he starting a new phase now of talks? Will he be traveling to the Middle East? What’s next?

MR. CROWLEY: I wouldn’t call it a new phase. We’re kind of in the same phase. But obviously, the prime minister and many representatives in the Israeli Government here on a private visit, but we’ve taken advantage of their presence here in Washington to continue the conversations that Secretary Clinton had with Israeli and Palestinian officials on her trip last week.

And I would expect – I don’t have anything to announce here, but obviously, going forward, we will continue our regular interaction with both Israeli officials, Palestinian officials, and other leaders in the region. We continue to encourage the parties to take positive steps. We continue to encourage the parties to get into negotiations as soon as possible. But we recognize that there are gaps that still exist and we continue to work to clarify and close those gaps.

QUESTION: I have two little questions. The first is that the White House said yesterday that while President Obama is in Singapore, he’ll be attending a meeting but not speaking with the prime minister of Burma, that they’ll be in the same meeting but there’s no contact envisioned. Is there any contact envisioned between the Secretary and any Burmese officials when she’s in Singapore, anything you can tell us?

MR. CROWLEY: I wouldn’t expect contact at that level. Kurt Campbell has been in the region. He obviously, along with Scot Marciel, have been to Burma for meetings in recent days. We haven’t set a date yet for further dialogue with the Burmese. But clearly, it’s one of the reasons we place a great importance in institutions such as APEC or institutions such as ASEAN because it does bring a broad array of countries into the region. And not only the United States, but others can have the kind of interaction with officials in Burma that we think is important.

But we have, as we’ve said in announcing our – the results of our review on Burma, we’ve taken a different course. We have chosen to engage Burma. We are expecting Burma to take affirmative steps in response. We would like to see Burma more affirmatively engage their ethnic communities. We’d like to see Burma open up their political processes for – and allow greater interaction within the country, including greater interaction between Aung San Suu Kyi and other – and her followers. What they’ll do, we don’t know, but we’re going to continue this conversation.

So yes, but I wouldn’t expect that this will rise to the level of the Secretary.

QUESTION: Okay.

QUESTION: Is Secretary going to meet anybody over there, Burmese leaders?

MR. CROWLEY: He just asked that question. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: No, I mean – no, you said President --

MR. CROWLEY: I would not expect – I would not expect the Secretary --

QUESTION: But you were saying President – no, you said President, but as --

MR. CROWLEY: No, no, I – no, to his follow-up question, I would not expect any interaction between the President, the Secretary, and Burmese officials.

QUESTION: Hugo Chavez apparently yesterday ordered his military to readiness to thwart any attack from Colombia and accused the United States of trying to provoke a war. Does that concern you?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, we are very much aware of recent tensions along the Venezuela and Colombia border. I certainly don’t think this is about the United States, but we certainly would encourage dialogue between Venezuela and Colombia and – a peaceful resolution of the situation along their border.

QUESTION: When do you expect that the new secretary for the Western Hemisphere will be sworn in, Arturo Valenzuela?

MR. CROWLEY: My very, very good friend Arturo Valenzuela will be sworn in this afternoon as the new Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. And a great American, Tom Shannon, will continue to focus on – as the Ambassador-designate for Brazil. Tom was up on the Hill for further meetings with the Senate. And we certainly continue to encourage the Senate to act on his confirmation as soon as possible.

QUESTION: Considering all the tension that’s going on in Latin America – talking about Honduras, talking about Venezuela and Colombia that was just mentioned – do you expect that the Secretary will go south during the next months, considering that Obama mentioned in Trinidad-Tobago that the U.S. is going to give more attention to Latin America?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, the Secretary has been intensively involved in issues in the hemisphere this year, whether it is promoting democracy, whether it pertains to Cuba, whether it pertains to Honduras, promoting freedom of expression and freedom of the press on a variety of countries including Venezuela. I would fully expect in the coming months that the Secretary will return to the region. We have nothing to announce at this point.

I know that one country that she would love to visit is Brazil, and we look forward to that visit. But obviously, we want to make sure that there is an ambassador – (laughter) – there to greet her when she arrives. So the Secretary has been very deeply engaged in making sure that she can get her regional team in place. We are delighted that Arturo Valenzuela will be joining us today, and we hope to see Tom Shannon confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to Brazil and onsite as quickly as possible.

QUESTION: Two questions on India. Thanks. I don’t know how much anybody aware in this building that there is a tension going on between India and China, and as far as this visit, and APEC meetings or visit to China, anybody is going to discuss as far as India and China and all those tension? And prime minister of India is coming here and now the President and the Secretary is visiting to China? Anything will come up?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, not necessarily, Goyal, accepting the precise premise of your question, obviously, as you look at the Asia Pacific region, two significant powers in the region, with China on the one hand, India on the other hand, the President and the Secretary will be deeply engaged in discussions in the region. They will have discussions with Chinese leaders. The President and Secretary look forward to welcoming the prime minister for an official visit later this month. But it reflects the importance that we attach to both countries not only in terms of regional issues, but global issues. And we think they are emerging global powers, and we – that’s why we have focused a great energy and attention on developing strong relationships with both.

QUESTION: Thanks.

QUESTION: What is the U.S. position on the executions in China related to Xinjiang? And have you communicated directly with the Chinese Government about the U.S. position on this?

MR. CROWLEY: I cannot say how we have communicated with them, but we continue to urge China to handle all detentions and judicial processes relating to the Urumqi violence in a transparent manner. We have also urged China to ensure that the legal rights of all Chinese citizens are respected in accordance with international standards of due process. And our Embassy officials in Beijing – I mean, I just answered your question – our Embassy officials in Beijing have discussed this issue directly with the Chinese Government.

QUESTION: And so do your Embassy officials in Beijing feel from their monitoring – because I know they do monitor what’s happened in Urumqi, and I know that they monitor the trials related to Urumqi – do they feel that the executions were justified or that the trials were done fairly?

MR. CROWLEY: I’ll take that question. I don’t know to what extent we had observers. We have concerns about these proceedings, but I can’t say whether we had observers in the courtroom or not.

Yeah.

QUESTION: We’re checking out some reports that perhaps somebody from
Ambassador Holbrooke’s office is in Beijing, a team, and if – I’m just wondering if you can confirm that. And if so, can you tell us what they’re doing there? And is there anything specific about aid to Afghanistan?

MR. CROWLEY: I can confirm that there is a team from Ambassador Holbrooke’s office in Beijing for discussions with Chinese officials on both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Obviously, the – when the Secretary was in Pakistan, we were looking at how these countries fit in a broader regional context. And China has an interest in what happens in both countries, and I think we’re there to help explain what our policies are and seek their input on the way forward.

QUESTION: Just noting that the Japanese announced – I think it was $5 billion in aid to Afghanistan just before the President’s arrival later this week. Is there any expectation or any hope on the U.S. side that the Chinese might end up contributing similar –

MR. CROWLEY: I’ll leave it to China to announce if they have – if they plan to provide any particular support to Afghanistan. And we are obviously grateful to the Japanese Government. They’ve been a significant supporter, and this is a manifestation of their continued efforts.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: I'm sorry, one more. Do you have any comment on the – I mean, you sent out an advisory yesterday about Colombia, about worsening violence in Colombia, and there was a clash between the FARC and the army that resulted in some fatalities. Do you have any comment about the current situation in Colombia, given that it was supposed to be getting better?

MR. CROWLEY: I don’t.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:46 p.m.)

Ian Kelly

Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

1:15 p.m. EST

MR. KELLY: All right. First of all, I want to welcome my old friend, Kerry Cavanaugh, Ambassador Kerry Cavanaugh, and the group of students from the University of Kentucky. You are a former ambassador, right, Kerry?

MR. CAVANAUGH: Yes.

MR. KELLY: Okay, good. Happy to give you a promotion if you weren’t.

I’d like to say a few things at the top about the Secretary’s schedule. You know that she’s in Berlin today, as P.J. mentioned before the previous briefing, representing the U.S. at the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She’s met with senior German officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.

She also had a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Papandreou. In addition to official events, this evening at the Brandenburg Gate, she met with U.S. Embassy staff and with German students who’d been sponsored by the U.S. Embassy and designed a domino for the celebrations in front of the Brandenburg Gate. She also visited the Holocaust Memorial, which is right next to the Embassy.

Tonight, she travels to Singapore. She will participate in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation ministerial meetings. Then she’ll go to the Philippines, and then she’ll come back to join the President for the APEC summit. At the APEC ministerial meetings, she will discuss with her counterparts measures to strengthen the multilateral trading system, progress on regional and economic integration, and strategies to foster inclusive and sustainable growth in APEC member countries.

At the summit, she’ll support the President’s agenda of encouraging regional peace and security, strengthening economic cooperation, and cooperating on regional and global issues such as economic development, environmental protection, and nonproliferation.

And I’ll be happy to take your questions.

QUESTION: Ian, the three Americans in Iran, the hikers, can you confirm that they have been charged with espionage by Iranian authorities?

MR. KELLY: Well, actually we haven’t received official confirmation that they’ve been charged, and we are continuing to seek information about these press reports. If it is true, that they have been formally charged, we would find this outrageous, and of course, the families would find it devastating. And I think you also heard what the Secretary said a little earlier today: “We believe that there is no evidence for these kinds of charges. We renew our request on behalf of these three young people and their families that the Iranian Government exercise compassion and let them return to their families.” We will continue to make that case, both publicly and privately, through our Swiss protecting power in Tehran.

QUESTION: Are you seeking consular access to the three Americans?

MR. KELLY: Our – the Swiss protecting power, the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, is constantly asking for consular access. And we hope that the Iranian authorities will grant that.

QUESTION: It’s only been one time so far; is that right?

MR. KELLY: I think it’s been several times.

QUESTION: Several?

MR. KELLY: But the most recently --

MR. WOOD: The last one was October 29^th.

MR. KELLY: The last one was October 29.

Yes.

QUESTION: Ian, it seems – or actually, al-Qaida and the Taliban groups continue with their predatory, vindictive, and malicious behavior with disdain for others. And what new concrete steps is the Department taking since the Fort Hood-type attacks, and do you view that as a cruel act as well as a symptom of these groups’ hate?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think what we are doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan is we’re siding with the governments there who are seeking to counter the kind of violent extremism that we’ve seen at the – with the Taliban and al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. And we are making a partnership with the governments in – both in Kabul and Islamabad, to try and help them deal with this – with these groups inside their borders and that are crossing between the two countries, and helping them provide a secure environment where the people of Afghanistan and the people of Waziristan can focus on what’s important, and that’s building their country’s infrastructure, providing educational and economic opportunities for their children, and in general, just a more peaceful and prosperous future.

QUESTION: Also with regard to the Fort Hood attack, any links that you see with al-Qaida or the Taliban? And is there now an ongoing media war? Do you plan to also meet with religious leaders, tribal leaders, and others to end this violence?

MR. KELLY: Well, I’m not sure that there is any link between the horrible acts that took place at Fort Hood a couple of days and our ongoing struggle against extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We are going to let the Department of Army and Department of Justice conduct their investigations into the motivations behind those terrible attacks on our service members and civilian members.

But you point out an important facet of this overall approach, and that’s the need for inclusiveness, for dialogue, for interfaith discussions, and in general, more tolerance for different points of view.

Michel.

QUESTION: On the peace process, is Senator Mitchell planning to go back to the Middle East, and what are you planning to do after the latest development on the Palestinian side?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think a lot of the focus today, of course, will be on the visit of Prime Minister Netanyahu. He’s meeting with the President tonight. We remain committed to our goal, which is the re-launch of negotiations between the sides and try and create the kind of atmosphere where these negotiations can succeed as soon as possible. As far as Senator Mitchell’s immediate plans, I’m not sure that he has plans in the very near term to return to the region. But of course, he’ll be ready to do so if that can be helpful.

QUESTION: Do you expect anything from the meeting between the President and Prime Minister Netanyahu?

MR. KELLY: Well, I’m not going to try and predict what – what’s going to come out of that meeting. I’ll leave that to the White House.

QUESTION: A different topic?

MR. KELLY: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: The Dalai Lama recently visited Arunachal Pradesh, which is disputed between India and China. The Chinese aren’t necessarily happy about that. Is there a U.S. position on the sovereignty of this area and whether the Dalai Lama has the right to visit as a religious leader?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think we don’t – I don’t think we have a position necessarily on his decision to travel to this area. The Dalai Lama, as you suggest, is primarily an internationally respected religious figure. And he, of course, has the right to go wherever he wants and talk to people that he chooses to talk to, and we just don’t see it in any other way than that.

Yeah, Indira.

QUESTION: Hi, Ian. Do you have any update on the discussions about Iran potentially sending its uranium to Turkey as an alternative to Russia, or what the U.S. is pushing for at this point? And also, can you update us on the meeting that was supposed to take place at the end of October between the U.S. and the Iranian side as a follow-up to the early October meeting that never did take place? Has that been rescheduled? Can you give us a full update?

MR. KELLY: Well, I – first of all, we are still waiting for a formal response to the IAEA. I think you’ve seen Director General ElBaradei’s comments that he still hasn’t received an official reply.

We continue to believe that this is a good agreement. It has the support of the international community. It answers a lot of the needs of the international community in terms of increasing our confidence that the Iranians are pursuing what they say they’re pursuing, which is a civil nuclear energy program. But it also meets the stated needs of the Iranian people, their humanitarian and medical needs.

So we, of course, stay in close contact with the IAEA. As far as any details on how this reprocessing will take place, I’d really have to refer you to the IAEA. We – as I said, we support the proposal. And we think that –

QUESTION: Meaning you support the proposal of sending it either to Russia or Turkey or whatever?

MR. KELLY: We support the proposal as the IAEA has presented it. And as I say, we’re still waiting for a formal reply to it. We’re also consulting very closely with our P-5+1 colleagues. And of course, we’re – we hope that Iran will make the next – make the right choice and accept the proposal. But we will consult on next steps if Iran ultimately decides to not take this opportunity.

QUESTION: Is there a deadline for a response?

MR. KELLY: Well, we’re not putting any kind of formal deadline on it, but I think you’ve heard the Secretary say that our patience is not infinite.

Any other on Iran?

QUESTION: On – or on a different –

MR. KELLY: Different topic?

QUESTION: On Honduras.

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Any new initiatives, any new visits to try to salvage the agreement?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think that – we understand that negotiators are meeting today. They’re still talking with a view to, first of all, formation of this national government of unity and reconciliation, which is called for in the agreement. That’s the next step. And if there’s some way that we can be helpful, we’re willing to be helpful, but I don’t have any announcements to make.

Yes.

QUESTION: Do you have any update on the plan for bilateral talks with North Koreans? Have you made any decision?

MR. KELLY: No. I have nothing to announce at this time, unfortunately.

QUESTION: Can I just ask –

MR. KELLY: Yeah, go ahead.

QUESTION: Can I just ask for a comment on – there is a Seymour Hersh report on nuclear weapons in Pakistan, saying that the U.S. is concerned about the safety of nuclear weapons in Pakistan and could try to seize it at a certain point. Is there a comment on that? Is there a plan underway, and are there concerns?

MR. KELLY: Well, first of all, let me just say the U.S. has no intention of seizing Pakistani nuclear weapons or material. We see Pakistan as a key ally in our common effort to fight violent extremists and to foster regional stability. We’re working very closely with Pakistan on a number of important initiatives regarding regional security. We do provide them with assistance, of course, as you know. And as the Secretary has said, we have confidence in the ability of the Pakistani Government to provide adequate security for their nuclear programs and materials. And we have a number of security assistance initiatives that are focused on strengthening counterinsurgency capacities to foster stability.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: Okay. Thanks.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:30 p.m.)

DPB # 192

# # #

Ian Kelly

Department Spokesman
Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

2:16 p.m. EST

MR. KELLY: Well, I'm going to actually make some statements at the top.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to Europe and Asia November 8 to 19, 2009. In Berlin, she will represent the United States at the 20^th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall and meet with senior German officials. Secretary Clinton will continue on to Singapore for meetings of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. While there, she'll attend the APEC ministerial meetings and will hold bilateral meetings with her counterparts from the region. In Manila, the Secretary will hold consultations with senior Filipino officials, highlighting the U.S.-Philippines treaty alliance. Returning to Singapore, the Secretary will join President Obama for the APEC leaders meeting.

And then I'd like to read a statement on Honduras. Last week, Honduran negotiators came to an accord that spells out a step-by-step process for Honduras to reestablish democratic and constitutional order and move toward national elections with the support of the international community. In the wake of the Verification Commission visit November 3 and 4, the two sides made significant progress toward the formation of a unity government. For that reason, we were particularly disappointed by the unilateral statements made last night, which do not serve the spirit of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord.

We urge both sides to act in the best interests of the Honduran people and return to the table immediately to reach agreement on the formation of a unity government. The formation of a government of unity and national reconciliation will serve the Honduran people and will change the political dynamics in the country in a positive way. It is urgent that this government be created immediately.

The Honduran people have made clear that they want to move forward. They deserve leadership that looks to the future in the interests of all Honduran people. Complete and timely implementation of the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord is the path to that future, and the formation of a government of unity and national reconciliation is the next vital step forward.

One more.

The United States Government is disappointed by the decision of the Egyptian public prosecutor’s office to deny Ayman Nour permission to travel. We hope the Government of Egypt will review its decision in this case and allow Mr. Nour to travel to the United States, as planned.

Yes.

QUESTION: On Honduras, anything to add on what Congressman[1] Jim DeMint said that the U.S. is willing to recognize the electoral result in Honduras with or without Zelaya?

MR. KELLY: I’m sorry, repeat that one more time.

QUESTION: Anything to add on what Congressman[2] Jim DeMint says about the recognition of the electoral results in Honduras about you are going to recognize the electoral results with or without Mr. Zelaya?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think we have agreed to support the electoral process. We are providing technical assistance to the elections process in Honduras. And we – we’ve made this commitment to support this process because of the accord between the two parties. And as the parties respect and implement this agreement step by step, we will continue to support the process. So that’s our policy right now.

QUESTION: Senator DeMint says that you – that he was given specific assurances from the Department that – forgetting about supporting the election, but that you will recognize, that the Administration will recognize the election as legitimate even if Zelaya has not been reinstated. Is that correct? Can I get a yes or no answer on this?

MR. KELLY: I think what we have said, what the Secretary has said, and what I’ll say --

QUESTION: Can I just get --

MR. KELLY: -- is that we support this accord which calls, first of all, for a Verification Commission, then for – and that’s been done. The next step is the formation of a government of unity and reconciliation, then a Congress vote on the restoration, and then the elections. So far, only one step has been carried out.

QUESTION: Is Senator DeMint correct or incorrect when he puts out in a statement that he has been given assurances by the Administration that it will risk – it will, excuse me – that it will recognize the result – the legitimacy – this election as legitimate, whether Zelaya has been reinstated or not? Yes or no?

MR. KELLY: Again, our support for these elections is the product of this agreement.

QUESTION: Senator DeMint put out a statement last night, yesterday, or this morning saying that he had been given these assurances and that he was lifting his hold on Shannon and Valenzuela because of that assurance.

MR. KELLY: I’m sorry, Matt. I don’t have the statement right here, so I can’t – I mean, I know you’re reading me the statement. Let me take the question, we’ll look at the statement, and we’ll give you a response.

QUESTION: So – but right now, you’re saying that he is not? I mean, I am --

MR. KELLY: No, I’m --

QUESTION: I’m telling you what he said in the statement. He said that he has been assured that you will recognize the election with or without --

MR. KELLY: Okay.

QUESTION: -- Zelaya being reinstated and that’s why he --

MR. KELLY: I would not – I know that the Secretary spoke to Senator DeMint. I know Tom Shannon has spoken to Senator DeMint. I was not in those meetings. I was not – and I didn’t – wasn’t on the phone call. Let me get back and find out exactly what we can say about this.

QUESTION: Ian?

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: What – going back to your statement, when you say that the U.S. Government is disappointed, disappointed of what? Disappointed – disappointment of Zelaya position? Yesterday, he said that he doesn’t follow any more of this agreement? Or disappointment with the government of Micheletti that they didn’t work with the congress to reinstate Zelaya? Or how – can you clarify that?

MR. KELLY: I think we’re disappointed with both sides. I think we’re disappointed that both sides are not following this very clear path which has been laid out in this accord. It has not formed a government of national unity for – I think what happened last night is that there was not an agreement on a government of national unity in reconciliation. It was a unilaterally decided government. And a unilaterally decided government is not a government of unity. So I think it’s fair to say we’re disappointed at both sides.

Yeah.

QUESTION: First, can you comment on the confirmation of Arturo Valenzuela as Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere? And second, what is the incentive to the de facto regime in Honduras once they have the assurance that Assistant Secretary Shannon made that the elections would be recognized regardless of what happens with Zelaya from here until the 29^th? So --

MR. KELLY: I think – yeah, first of all, I think what Assistant Secretary Shannon said is as this agreement is implemented, it gives us a way to move forward, and it gives us a way to support the elections. So that’s one. On the confirmation of Arturo Valenzuela, of course, we’re very pleased that he was confirmed by unanimous consent, and of course we’re also disappointed that Tom Shannon’s nomination did not go forward. We think Tom Shannon is one of our best diplomats, and we look forward to him being confirmed as well very quickly to be ambassador to Brazil.

QUESTION: Talking about Brazil, there is today an expression from Lula that is in all the newspapers saying that he thinks that Obama is not following with Latin America as he said that he was going to do in the conference of Trinidad and Tobago. And he said also an expression that instead of U.S. being afraid of Venezuela, Venezuela should be afraid of the U.S. What’s your --

MR. KELLY: Well, again, I’m not going to react to something I haven’t seen. I will say that this Administration has put a very high priority on Latin America. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into revitalizing the Inter-American process through the OAS. As I just said, we named one of our best diplomats to be Ambassador to Brazil. We’re looking forward to Arturo Valenzuela to be the next assistant secretary. We’ve put really extraordinary efforts into the – resolving the crisis in Honduras. So I think that we’ve really revitalized our relationships with Latin America.

QUESTION: Well, I just want to follow up on what you said that Tom Shannon said, that as the agreement is implemented, this will help you move forward to the elections. But I’m not really clear if you think that the agreement has been implemented.

MR. KELLY: No, it hasn’t been implemented.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. KELLY: The first step has, the Verification Commission.

QUESTION: But I mean, to go ahead and declare, you know, yourself the head of the national unity government would not necessarily be implementing the agreement.

MR. KELLY: Well, it was done unilaterally, this – the --

QUESTION: Right.

MR. KELLY: The announcement was done unilaterally. And, I mean, we still think that this accord is a – the best way forward to resolve this crisis and is in the best interests of the Honduran people. We should always think --

QUESTION: But --

MR. KELLY: -- about supporting the Honduran people and move beyond the maximalist positions and the overheated rhetoric that we’re seeing.

QUESTION: But just to be clear, that the implementation of the agreement as it stands now, which you said is not necessarily implemented, you would not recognize the elections?

MR. KELLY: Well, no. I just think that it’s – I mean, our – we believe that we can support these elections as we go forward implementing this agreement. And we continue to support them. We financially are supporting the elections through technical assistance.

QUESTION: But I’m not clear about –

MR. KELLY: We’re going to support observation efforts.

QUESTION: Yeah, but the actions today as they stand, I mean, it doesn’t bring you any closer to being able to recognize the elections?

MR. KELLY: Well, we –

QUESTION: It sounds like you’re going to recognize them no matter what.

MR. KELLY: Well, we believe that this agreement can be implemented.

QUESTION: I know you do.

MR. KELLY: And – yeah. I mean, we --

QUESTION: But it’s not being --

MR. KELLY: It’s not that hard. And so we’re not going to – I mean, I’m not going to pronounce that the agreement isn’t going to be implemented; therefore we’re not going to recognize the elections. Let’s focus on implementing the agreement.

QUESTION: So the question would be would you recognize the elections depending on the compliance with the agreement, or will you recognize the elections with --

MR. KELLY: Well, let’s see what happens. I’m not going to prejudge what we’re going to do.

QUESTION: The problem with that is that it leads to really complete confusion. No one knows what the – what your policy is.

MR. KELLY: Our policy is to support the implementation of the agreement.

QUESTION: Yeah, but if you haven’t told – have you told –

MR. KELLY: But you’re asking me what we may or may not do on November 29.

QUESTION: Well, have you told the Honduras they if they don’t --

MR. KELLY: There’s a lot of time between now and then.

QUESTION: -- implement this agreement, you’re not going to recognize the validity of the election? And you’re hemming and hawing around it. You can’t answer the question about DeMint and the assurances, and you can’t – and no one has been able --

MR. KELLY: Look –

QUESTION: -- from Tom Shannon on down, no one has – will answer this question, even though I’m sure there is a clear-cut answer.

MR. KELLY: The bottom line is that we have a Honduran process in place where the two sides have sat down; they’ve signed on to the agreement; the agreement is specific in terms of the next steps to be taken. If the two sides can agree on a way forward – and the best way forward is this agreement; I mean, it’s very specific – then we support it. But I – what happens between now and November 29, I don’t know, but we’re supporting this Honduran process.

QUESTION: Even though it is not being implemented, you’re continuing to support it, even though you’re disappointed in what this --

MR. KELLY: We’re disappointed that this –

QUESTION: But you’re still going to support the process.

MR. KELLY: We’re supporting the process.

QUESTION: Well, then, I don’t understand. Then what you just said as the bottom line means nothing.

MR. KELLY: It means that they need to sit down and start talking again. They – it means --

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

MR. KELLY: -- they have to stop saying – maybe they need to stop making dire statements that the agreement is dead.

QUESTION: There must be someone in this building who can give a straight answer to this question.

MR. KELLY: (Laughter.)

QUESTION: I don’t know who.

MR. KELLY: I’m giving you a straight answer.

QUESTION: Mr. Shannon did go on the record.

QUESTION: Ian, no, with all due respect –

MR. KELLY: You’re asking me to look ahead and predict --

QUESTION: No, we’re asking –

MR. KELLY: -- what we’re going to support or won’t support, and I don’t know what’s going to happen between now and November 29^th.

QUESTION: So you’re saying that like –

QUESTION: But the answer – but the question: Is have you given the assurances to either DeMint or to whoever, or have you told the Hondurans?

MR. KELLY: I’ll get you that answer.

QUESTION: Yeah, right. That – and this is the question, though. Have you told them, or anyone else, that no matter whether Zelaya is reinstated or not, you’re going to support – you’ll recognize the election? I’m not asking you to predict what is going to happen, if he comes back or not. But there’s got to be a bottom line here, or else the whole policy just kind of falls apart and the people don’t – Micheletti’s people think that they have your support, then Zelaya (inaudible) --

MR. KELLY: Okay. Well, you’re – then you’re back to that question that I took and I said we’ll get you the information on.

QUESTION: Right. And the other – just one other thing: Did the Secretary ever answer Zelaya’s letter asking for clarification?

MR. KELLY: I don’t believe that she has.

QUESTION: What incentive does the Micheletti government have to instate Zelaya if, what they do today, you say you’re going to continue to support the process?

MR. KELLY: The incentive is, is that it’s in the best interests of the Honduran people. They have – I mean, right now --

QUESTION: So at the (inaudible) for the last three months?

MR. KELLY: -- there is high tension, chaos. That is what – that’s what got the two sides to sit down and sign the agreement in the first place. I mean, that was the incentive, that this is – they need to move beyond the present state of chaos and uncertainty and resolve this in a peaceful negotiated way. And they agreed to a way forward and they just need to keep doing this step by step.

QUESTION: Well, I mean, they took a step, which was totally antithetical to the agreement that they signed.

MR. KELLY: Okay. They need to get back and sit down and --

QUESTION: We’ll check back with you on November 29^th.

MR. KELLY: – figure out how to do that step. They – I mean --

QUESTION: Why don’t we check back with you on November 29^th and see what he --

QUESTION: Well, Mr. Shannon did say on the record – we have the interview – that regardless of what happened from now until the 29^th, the U.S. would support the elections. That is on the record; we have it. So how is that different now?

MR. KELLY: I need to see that. I have not actually seen that.

QUESTION: Any chance that Mr. Shannon is – will go back to Honduras, try to bring the parts together again?

QUESTION: Or Mr. Valenzuela?

QUESTION: Or Mr. Valenzuela?

QUESTION: Or Mr. Valenzuela?

MR. KELLY: I’m not going to rule anything in or rule anything out. There’s no plans for that, though.

New subject?

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

MR. KELLY: New subject?

QUESTION: That’s all right.

QUESTION: This is kind of just a technical thing. Since Valenzuela has been confirmed and Tom Shannon hasn’t, does Tom Shannon have a job title right now?

MR. KELLY: He’s still assistant secretary. Arturo Valenzuela will need to be sworn in.

QUESTION: Which will be when?

MR. KELLY: I don’t know that anything’s scheduled right now. I’m sure it’ll be soon. He’s been confirmed.

QUESTION: And you know India is in a high alert because of there might be some terrorism beyond Mumbai, and two persons are arrested by the FBI in Chicago. One is American. And now al-Qaida, what they are saying, is now recruiting Americans to bring bad relations between the two countries, India and U.S. And what Indian authorities are saying that only David, who is being held by the FBI in Chicago, knows where and when one of the biggest ever beyond Mumbai attack may occur in India.

So do you have any idea if anybody in touch with you from India or what the FBI is telling you, because if anybody is asking him to tell everything he knows before any chaos happens in --

MR. KELLY: Goyal, I think all I can really tell you from our diplomatic angle is that I know that our Ambassador has briefed the Government of India on the case, and we continue to follow the case. I’m not at liberty to divulge the details of the interrogation. I mean, that’s – it’s an ongoing legal case, and it really is up to the Department of Justice to – I mean, that’s really in their purview. But I do know that we have briefed the Government of India on the broad parameters of the case.

QUESTION: And just to follow, special representative – or special assistant to Prime Minister Singh – or according to national security advisor, was in the U.S. on a secret mission. He met almost everybody, high-level officials, including national security advisor. And if he met anybody in this building or if you know --

MR. KELLY: Well, I don’t think it was a secret mission.

QUESTION: Well, nobody knew in India and nobody knew here as far as --

MR. KELLY: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- press reports. Only after he left and after meeting the U.S. officials came to know in Indian press --

MR. KELLY: Yeah. I just would – I would not encourage you to use the word “secret mission.” I’m pretty sure he did have meetings here in this building, and we’ll see if we can get you the information on who he met with.

QUESTION: I mean, what I meant was that – anything to do with this arrest in Chicago or high alert in India?

MR. KELLY: I don’t know. We’ll see if we can get you more information.

Yes.

QUESTION: It was reported today that Bosworth made some statements yesterday at the Chamber of Commerce saying that he would be going to North Korea at the beginning – or at the end of this year, beginning of next year. Do you have anything to say about the statements?

MR. KELLY: All I know at this point is that we’re still considering the invitation. I think we’ll have something to announce, but we don’t have anything to announce yet.

QUESTION: I’m sorry, if he told a whole room of people that he’s going to North Korea, you can’t say anything about it?

MR. KELLY: No, I can’t, Elise --

QUESTION: Well, then you can’t stand by the words of your envoy?

MR. KELLY: -- because I think that that particular event was off the record, for one thing.

QUESTION: You can’t stand by the words of your envoy? I mean --

MR. KELLY: I will always stand by the words of our envoy --

QUESTION: So who’s speaking? Who --

MR. KELLY: -- but I may not be able to publicly announce something that was said in an off-the-record session.

QUESTION: Can you say in what capacity he was even there? Because when you called them, they weren’t even really aware he was at that event or --

MR. KELLY: I really – the only details I have of the event is that it was an off-the-record event. There seem to be quite a few details leaking out of off-the-record statements and events these days.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

QUESTION: Do you have anything about Wi Sung-lac’s meeting here? Is he meeting again today?

MR. KELLY: Yes. Briefly – sorry. Yes, Wi Sung-lac is visiting Washington. He was here yesterday and he’s here today for consultations on North Korea. He is meeting with Deputy Secretary James Steinberg, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Joseph Donovan, Special Representative for North Korea Policy Ambassador Bosworth, and Special Envoy for the Six-Party Talks Ambassador Kim. They discussed the next steps in resuming the Six-Party process and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. These meetings are part of our regular ongoing periodic consultations with officials from the Republic of Korea and, of course, represent the very close cooperation we have with South Korea.

We remain committed to the resumption of the Six-Party Talks and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1718 and 1874.

QUESTION: Speaking of the Security Council, the Goldstone report that was – I moved for another topic – that was approved yesterday in the United Nations, there is some speculation that said that the U.S. may veto this report if it goes to the Security Council. Do you have any point of this? This is in the press today. And they say that if it's vetoed it can go to the Netherlands Hague court.

MR. KELLY: Well, what happened yesterday was the – there was a resolution in the General Assembly. The U.S. and 17 other nations voted against it. We continue to strongly support the need for accountability, such as some of the events that are in the report, through credible domestic investigations. And we note that Israel is undertaking such investigations. Ultimately though, the best way to address the suffering in Gaza is by getting the two sides to sit down and talk and – towards the ultimate goal of two sides living side by side in peace and security.

We don't support raising this issue in the Security Council. The members of the Security Council themselves decide which matters the Council will consider. We believe that this issue is best raised in the Human Rights Council and not in the Security Council, so we would be very much against it being taken up by the Security Council.

QUESTION: Well, but don't you think that kind of supports the idea that the UN Security Council is totally out of touch with the majority of the world, which a lot of countries said in their address to the UN General Assembly? I mean, if 168 nations support it and 17 don't, don't you think that the majority of the world thinks that these issues should be investigated?

MR. KELLY: Well, we --

QUESTION: Isn't the UN Security Council – I'm sorry – isn't the UN Security Council supposed to kind of represent the world body in terms of national – in terms of international security?

MR. KELLY: What – we will – we don't think it's in our interest at this --

QUESTION: In your interests?

MR. KELLY: In our interest, the U.S. national interest, that it be taken up by the Security Council. We are committed to the resumption of talks between the two sides, and we do not want to take any steps that would, in any way, jeopardize the resumption of those talks. We also believe that these kinds of issues are best raised and best dealt with through domestic institutions. And we call on Israel to set up the kind of mechanisms to investigate these – some of these allegations. The allegations are very serious allegations and deserve to be investigated. But this is not something we believe should be taken up by the UN Security Council. We follow our national interests and that's what --

QUESTION: So the UN Security Council is only about 15 countries' international interests?

MR. KELLY: I'm not going to get into an argument about the UN Security Council and its role in the world right now. I'm just talking about what our interests are right now. Our interests are the resumption --

QUESTION: So when you – I'm just – I'm sorry. But when you take a vote at the UN Security Council, you're only voting on behalf of U.S. interests?

MR. KELLY: We – for the UN Security Council, we – yes, we make our decisions based on the – our national interests and the interest of our allies.

QUESTION: Yeah, that – the second part being key, I think, there.

QUESTION: Ian --

MR. KELLY: Okay. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: At least on this issue or issues related to the Middle East.

MR. KELLY: Yes, yes.

Yeah. Michele in the back.

QUESTION: Yeah. I wanted to ask about Abbas, his announcement yesterday. I know you spoke to it yesterday. But has anyone in this building been in touch with him since then, trying to convince him to stay on, trying to advantage of the last couple of months while he's there?

MR. KELLY: Regarding whether or not somebody's been in touch with him, I'm frankly not – I'm not sure. I know that our people on the ground, I'm sure, are in touch with him. I really – I don't have much to add beyond what the Secretary said yesterday, that we have tremendous respect for him and we think he's an important player in the process, a voice of moderation, and we look forward to continuing to work with him. But I don't have anything to add to what the Secretary said yesterday.

QUESTION: But do you think that there should be elections in January in the Palestinian territories, given the state of the kind of tensions between Hamas and Fatah, because the Palestinians certainly aren't united? You don't want a repeat of what happened in 2005.

MR. KELLY: Mm-hmm.

QUESTION: Should there be elections?

MR. KELLY: Well, I think that any government should be representative of the will of the Palestinian people. We understand that there's an internal political dynamic now that is affecting our goal to – our goal of re-launching the negotiations, and that's something that's understandable. But the decision to hold elections is a – is really – that's a matter for the people themselves to decide.

QUESTION: Well, it wasn't a matter of like three or four years ago. You were completely insistent – the United States was completely insistent that the Palestinians did hold elections, which is why Hamas was elected. So is it – so you think the Palestinians should just decide amongst themselves what --

MR. KELLY: I think the --

QUESTION: You don't have an opinion? Do you have an opinion on that?

MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, of course, we have an opinion on it.

QUESTION: What's your opinion?

MR. KELLY: Well, our opinion is that we need to address the root causes --

QUESTION: No, about the elections.

MR. KELLY: -- of the lack of peace. And in order to do that, you need to have institutions and mechanisms in place to be able to guarantee a better future for your – for the people. And I – but I’m not going to say whether or not the Palestinian people should have elections in January. That’s really for them to decide.

QUESTION: Well, that’s a change in U.S. policy, then, because last time, you were fully insistent that they should have elections. But, I mean, President Abbas --

MR. KELLY: When was the last time? What are you – I’m not sure what you mean by the last time.

QUESTION: Well, I mean under the Bush Administration. But --

MR. KELLY: Well, this is a different administration.

QUESTION: Okay. Well --

QUESTION: (Inaudible).

QUESTION: (Laughter.) There’s a difference between saying the policy is unchanged and restating the policy.

QUESTION: But (inaudible).

QUESTION: Wait, no, no, no. But President Abbas said that he won’t run for reelection. But if the Palestinians don’t hold elections, he could be president indefinitely. Wouldn’t that --

MR. KELLY: It’s up for the Palestinian people to decide when they want to have elections, when they think it’s an appropriate moment.

QUESTION: Do you all have any problem with the Turks inviting President Bashir to the OIC conference?

MR. KELLY: I think that is – that’s – I mean, our position --

QUESTION: But please don’t tell me --

MR. KELLY: -- is clear.

QUESTION: -- that you’re not a member of the EU and you’re not a member of the ICC.

MR. KELLY: No, I wasn’t going to say that.

QUESTION: Just say, “I’m just not – ”

MR. KELLY: Well, actually, maybe I was going to say the latter, yeah. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Do you have a problem with them inviting a guy who’s been indicted for war crimes?

MR. KELLY: It really – it’s, first of all, we think that leaders should be held accountable for their actions. And we think that what happened in Sudan needs – there needs to be accountability for it. We would expect Turkey to raise these kinds of issues. If they were to have any sort of bilateral meeting with Mr. Bashir, we would expect them to raise these issues about the importance of accountability in addressing the humanitarian crisis in Sudan. But it’s really up to the Government of Turkey to decide if they want to --

QUESTION: Okay. So it doesn’t matter; you don’t really care as long as, if they do do it, they raise this issue with him?

MR. KELLY: We would expect them to be consistent with the – with our policy of raising our concerns of accountability.

Yeah. Go ahead, you haven’t had a question.

QUESTION: Do you have a readout on the Japan meetings?

MR. KELLY: Yes, I do. Assistant Secretary Campbell met with senior members of the Japanese Government, including Foreign Minister Okada and also his counterparts in the ministries of foreign affairs and defense on Thursday, on November 5^th. He reaffirmed the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance and discussed with Japanese how we can best work together on a wide range of regional and global issues. He also discussed what we hope to accomplish during President Obama’s trip to Japan next week and discussed plans to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of our alliance next year, and other areas where our two countries can work together.

QUESTION: Same topic --

QUESTION: Any discussion of the basing agreement?

MR. KELLY: I don’t have any details on that. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did discuss it, though.

QUESTION: Is Secretary meeting with the Japanese foreign minister in Singapore?

MR. KELLY: I don’t know. I don’t have a list of her bilateral meetings there.

QUESTION: A quick one on a different subject, please. The future of the freedom of the press in Pakistan may be in trouble according to Freedom House, because the National Assembly of Pakistan is now considering a bill which will be anti-press freedom. Do you have any idea on what you have to say?

MR. KELLY: Yeah, I’d have to see the details of the bill, but we’ll see if we can get you more information.

QUESTION: Thanks.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. KELLY: Thank you.

(The briefing was concluded at 2:50 p.m.)

DPB # 191

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[1] Senator

[2] Senator