Briefing Skipper: Marrakesh express

Posted By Josh Rogin Thursday, October 22, 2009 - 1:20 PM Share

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. Here are the highlights of yesterday's briefing by Department Spokesman Ian Kelly:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will go to Marrakesh, Morocco, to attend the Forum for the Future on Nov. 2 and 3, apparently just before she travels to Berlin for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She met Wednesday with British shadow secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs William Hague.
The U.S. will endorse the draft agreement on Iranian uranium transfers to third countries by Friday, said Kelly, after everybody in the U.S. government has had a chance to sign off.
American forces are committed to providing security for the Nov. 7 runoff presidential elections in Afghanistan, which the U.S. supports. No opinion on a potential power sharing agreement between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah. And don't worry, Richard Holbrooke is still hard at work in Washington leading the AfPak strategy review.
The State Department welcomes Turkish efforts to engage the Kurdish PKK, which the U.S. still considers a terrorist group. "Our Iraq policy is separate from this issue," Kelly said.
State fired civil service appointee Richard Lopez Razo, who was arrested this week for taking tens of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks related to reconstruction projects in Iraq.